


Leaves from the Vine

by Northernflicker



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Female Character, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Childhood, Coma, Coming of Age, F/F, F/M, Families of Choice, Growing Up, Hospitals, Leaving Home, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sisters, buckle up kiddos, i will never write a fic with chapters, its a long one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 07:17:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8240980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northernflicker/pseuds/Northernflicker
Summary: Mia had found Charley in the garden when she was sixteen years old, late to her morning training session. He was small and round and green, and he looked up at her with ruddy eyes, and she looked down at him. She didn't know it at the time, that she had just found her life long companion. She just knows that someone is calling for her, and she has a lot of studying to do before she can leave for law school in a few years and finally become the attorney she was meant to be, wherever the path may lead her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This all started when I saw this adorable piece of fanart: http://rwby2.tumblr.com/post/150375012079/charley and I had to write something for it. I just didn't expect this so be so long...how did this happen...

She found Charley  in the garden when she was sixteen years old. He was small and round and green, and he looked up at her with ruddy eyes, and she looked down at him. The bulb on his back was slick with dew.  

Mia thinks about how she isn’t allowed to own pokemon other than what the nuns had assigned her. But the Ralts they gave was only used for training purposes, to build her spiritual power and help her concentrate on meditation, so they didn’t get to bond much.

She’s heard of some physic trainers bonding so deeply with their pokemon that they gain a telepathic connection. But she only sees Ralts once a day. They never let her hold him or take him on walks or anything. It doesn’t look like Ralts even wants to leave the training halls, anyway.

Not that she minds, really. She read in a book somewhere that a starter pokemon chooses you, not the other way around, so she isn’t too upset that her and Ralts weren’t destined for each other. So maybe she’d find her starter in the city, where the dark types are, or down by the river, where the water types are, or in the mountains, where the rock types are.  

Children in the village often spread rumors about dragon types in the mountains, and that they pick up kids that wander off and carry them back to their nest. But Mia didn’t care much for rumors, either. She’s always been sensible like that, her aunt had once told her, though Aunt Morgan was probably referring to how Mia had no ambitions to be the Master of Kurain. But it was the closest Aunt Morgan’s ever gotten to complimenting her, so Mia likes to repeat it in her head.

All she has to do now is wait until she’s old enough to leave this dusty old place. She can make it a few more years.  

That’s what she’s thinking when her eyes stray over to the garden, caught on a certain folding of the leaves. So she walks closer, feeling the morning dew brush her toes from where the grass is taller than her clunky wooden sandals, feeling the bite of the cold mountain air on her forearms.  

She kneels down, searching, in the dim morning light, already aware that she’s going to be late to her morning training session, and Ralts will be waiting for her. She’ll be scolded for that, and she’ll wonder, again, why she even has to learn things like meditation when she knows she’s not going to be a spirit medium.

So she feels rocks digging into her knees as she peers through the undergrowth, cold under her thin robes. She feels like the only one awake, folded into this tiny corner of the village, hidden by the lazy morning fog, though she knows that isn’t true.  

The Pokemon peers up at her with guarded eyes. It’s a Bulbasaur, she realizes, looking at the small bright bulb on his back, screwed tight against the morning chill. She’s never seen a Bulbasaur in real life before, but she recognizes it from her books. She wonders if it had belonged to a client, and had wandered off. Should she report it?

The Bulbasaur glares at her. Mia watches him. She can hear water running somewhere, and a few Spearow cawing in the distance. But mountain life is boring and still and removed from the rest of the world, so seeing a new grass type is a rare treat.

So Mia reaches out, on whim, and the Bulbasaur peeks his thin, premature vines out as a warning. Mia holds her breath as she leans in, and the Bulbasaur digs it’s round paws into the ground, widening its stance.

Then she hears her name being called, cutting quick through the hazy morning. The Bulbasaur springs back at the sudden noise, scrambling against the fence, eyes bright with panic. Mia glances at the sound of her name, and feels the snap of a vine on her wrist, still hovering near the pokemon.

She pulls her arm away, holding her wrist to her chest as it smarts. She takes a slow breath, looking at the reddening skin, feeling the pain shoot down her arm. The Bulbasaur eyes her warily, skittish and wild still. She suddenly remembers that this is a wild pokemon, not a domesticated one, so of course he would be afraid of her.

Not wanting to scare him away, she rises quickly and runs to the sound of her instructor calling her name, probably ruining a few nearby meditations in the process. It’s not the first time she’s been late, and it won’t be the last. Still, she cradles her wrist, the sting of the whip already fading, and hopes to see the Bulbasaur again.

* * *

   
She isn’t allowed to own any pokemon until she’s either an adult, or at the level of her training where she can manage the one that’s been assigned to her by herself. So this means she has no access to the industrial pokeballs of the city, or the apricorn balls made here in the village. This means that she has to stay up late reading about the feeding habits of a Bulbasaur, and spend her breaks from training scavenging in the forest, comparing berries with the pictures in her books.

She comes back with bruised knees, with scratches starting to form dark, angry scabs. She has dirt and grass stained into her robes, and a small pile of Pecha berries that she found by the river. Aunt Morgan will be displeased that she got her robes muddy, but she won’t say as much, she'll simply press her lips together and order a nun to take care of it.

Mia shuffles through the village, holding a modest pile of berries in her robes by picking up an end and making a impromptu basket. She knows that her robes will have water stains from where she cleaned the berries by the river, but the excitement that fills her when she thinks about seeing the Bulbasaur again more than makes up for it.

So she makes her way through the village carefully, trying not to be suspicious, until she finds her way back to the garden.

She plants a berry by the fence, hoping a bush will grow from it, and holds the rest in her lap. She has dirt encrusted in her nails, and she still remembers the iciness of the mountain water, where she had rubbed the berries clean.

Mia thinks she’s the only one who knows of the Bulbasaur’s existence, an idea that excited her, so she ignores the rocks digging into her ankles, and how her hair will get dusty as she leans down to peer through the plants, searching for the pokemon.  

She hears a sharp, indignant cry and spins around, guilty, spilling the berries into the dirt. Her heart settles when she sees the Bulbasaur, stiff legged behind her. She looks at how small he is, no more than a hatchling. The spots of darker green are just barely visible from the rest of him, and his bulb is tight and small, disproportionate to his back.  She realizes that she’s blocking his entrance and throws herself out of the way, watching curiously as the Bulbasaur circles closer, seeming to stumble over it’s paws.

The Bulbasaur cautiously takes a berry from where she had dropped them in her haste, the one farthest from her, and gently carries it in his mouth back under the underbrush. Mia carefully picks up the rest of her berries, now soiled from the dirt. She feel the Bulbasaur glare at her with his rusty red eyes.

She holds out another berry. She watches as he takes slow, deliberate steps forward, staring at her, vines raised cautiously. Bulbasaur takes the berry in his mouth and tugs, hard, plucking it from her fingers, and quickly retreating into the undergrowth.

She rolls another berry between her fingers, crouching down as small as she can make herself. When Bulbasaur takes the berry from her, he does not bolt away, but he does watch her suspiciously while he thoughtfully chews the berry.  

When he does not retreat, she slowly offers her hand to the Bulbasaur. He watches her curiously as he mashes the berry, but does not move. When she places her careful hand on his forehead, he stiffens for a bit, and she’s afraid that he’ll bite her or run away. Instead, he presses into the warmth of her palm, screwing his eyes shut. Mia feels something warm and fond sprouting inside her at this show of trust, bringing a soft smile to her face.

With her hand still on his forehead, she produces her final berry, and he takes it, gazing up at her with bright red eyes. Mia feels the budding smile on her lips so she embraces it, beaming, and the wild Bulbasaur seems to mirror the expression.

Mia doesn’t think she’s ever connected with a pokemon like this before. It feels different than how the Ralts in the training hall looks at her, eyes beady and dull and bored. It feels different than how Morgan’s Gothelle watches her, eyes narrow and scornful.

The Bulbasaur looks at her with big round eyes, and Mia thinks that they’re the same, small and alone in the garden, surrounded by beings so much bigger than themselves.

The clear afternoon sun makes her robes itch on her back. She watches as a thin, sinewy vine careful extracts itself from the bulb, reaching farther and farther. The Bulbasaur frowns at the effort, lifting onto the tips of it’s claws, craning its vines until they extend up to Mia’s face.  

The Bulbasaur carefully traces the shape of her face with it’s vines, so gently that she can barely feel them ghost over her cheek. She dares not to breathe and break this tenuous bond they share, and she prays that no one will barge in and ruin this careful balance.

The Bulbasaur carefully drags it’s vines down the shape of her face, and then retracts them, slowly, looking bashful. She supposes that it’s his genuine show of trust, or perhaps an apology for hurting her a few days ago. Either way, she appreciates the show of gratitude, or whatever the movement may mean. So she smiles, and rubs her hand along the Bulbasaur's forehead, scratching behind his ears, watching as he butts up against her hand, affectionately, and feels like some connection has been made.  

* * *

 

She calls him Charley. Though she doesn’t say it aloud to anyone except for him. She visits him when she can, careful to split her time between Maya, her training, her normal studies, and Charley. Sometimes, she brings her notes to the garden, pouring over arithmetic as Charley sits in her lap, crooning at Beautiflies that drift by.

He snuggles up against her, and she ignores the way his bulb pokes into her stomach as she memorizes formulas and symbols. She does get home schooled, but she knows she’ll be at a disadvantage when she finally leaves Kurain to be a defense attorney, so she doesn’t want to fall behind the city kids.

Instead, she feels Charley’s paws knead her thighs as the hot summer afternoon bakes down on them. Charley doesn’t seem to mind the heat, spreading out and drinking in the warmth greedily. She envies him, as she feels her robes stick to her, the distinct discomfort of sweat dripping down her spine as he soaks in sunlight and relaxes his bulb, eyes closed blissfully.  

So, she remains tucked away in the garden during her free time, teaching Charley basic algebra as he pretends to listen. When she comes across something she doesn’t know, she tries to explain it to him, and he pulls her sandal off with a vine in one quick motion.

“I know, Charley,” Mia sighs, putting down her pencil, “I don’t like math either.”

She makes a grab for her heavy wooden sandal and he deftly swings it out of her reach. They’ve got to be careful, playing like this. If they make too much noise, someone might come to investigate. It’s why she keeps Charley a secret, even from Maya. If her little sister went and told someone about Mia’s secret pokemon, then everyone in the village might trample around where they don’t belong. Mia doesn’t want Charley to be taken away. She enjoys having him all to herself, her own little secret.

So she launches herself forward and reclaims her sandal, as the Bulbasaur emits a high pitched, bubbly noise. She realizes that he’s imitating her laughter, which he’s heard from her on more than one occasion, and has connected it with happiness.

She laughs quietly, but her heart isn't in it. She feels her sandal in her hand, as Charley continues to make gleeful cooing noises. She doesn’t realize she’s crying until she feels a careful vine resting near her eye, jolting her away from her thoughts. She rubs her eyes quickly, smiling through her tears, and allows Charley to crawl into her lap.

She hugs him, and he does not squirm, or cry out. He simply nests against her as she holds him, thinking about what she did to ever have anyone look at her like that, so pure and joyful and trusting. Mia is suddenly reminded of Maya, and she wants to see her, but Maya’s busy training right now, so Mia hugs Charley instead and thinks about how she’s going to leave this all behind in a two years.  

How had her life gone so quickly? Her mother has been gone for only four years, and Mia’s going to find out what happened. Which means she’s going to leave Maya here, and miss out on watching her grow up. She’s not going to see her every day, she’ll have to leave her behind in order to find the truth about what happened, and so they won’t have to fight over who is the Master.  

Will Maya really understand, when the time comes, just what her older sister is doing? Mia wishes she didn’t have to do this. She hates Kurain for it’s blood feuds and she hates the title of the master for destroying her family like this. She wishes her life could stay this way, with Charley and Maya and nothing else for her to worry about.

How can she leave Maya behind? Maya was her world. Would she be alright here in the village by herself? Will she be lonely? Will she find a starter pokemon to bond with? Will she be completely alone?

Mia takes a deep breath. Maya is going to be fine. She knows this. She says it out loud, just for good measure. Charley twists his head to look at her, worried, when he hears the tremble in her voice.

“Maya is going to be fine,” she tells him, “Maya is going to be fine, and I’m going to be fine, and it’s not like we won’t see each other anymore. We still have a lot of time together.”  

But she still feels a fearful lump in her throat when she thinks about herself, alone in the overwhelming city, so far from her idyllic mountain life.

Charley rests his head in her lap as she talks. She tells him about her training, and her family, and her plans for the future. When she realizes how late it is, he is asleep, a warm, heavy weight on her legs.

She picks him up carefully and places him on the cold, dirty ground, shaded by the leaves of the Pecha bush. She tries not to feel bad about leaving him here, alone and defenseless. She tries not to think about how small and unassuming he is, and how he trusts her so quickly.

He had probably been starving when she found him, but now his bulb has filled out to a plump weight, covered in healthy, glossy sheen. His eyes are brighter, more alert, and she knows that he doesn’t have anyone except for her, so he depends on her to come back for him every day.

But she leaves him on the cold ground anyway, gathering her notebook and trying not to miss his warmth.

* * *

 

Autumn comes quickly, and with it, a new batch of stress. No one worried when Mia disappeared for hours in the summer time, presumably to study. But now she is hounded by the nuns to study inside if she must, or she’ll catch a cold. Even Maya starts to pout when Mia glances out the window one too many times, when she’s supposed to be listening to Maya’s story.

So Mia apologizes, smoothing a wrinkle in her robes, and patiently asks her sister to start over. But Mia can’t stop her thoughts from drifting back to Charley. She had visited him yesterday, and he had taken the time to show her all of the leaves he had gathered for his nest. The leaves smelled sweet with decay, damp and brown and matted from the rain.

Charley doesn’t stray from the garden, seemingly frightened of the noise in the village, so he simply waits for Mia to come back for him, and she always does, as much as she can.

But still, it’s been getting colder lately, and Kurain winters strike harsh and fast, and linger for days and days, until the village morphs into a washed out blend of gray and white, drained of all color except for her purple winter robes and her sister’s inky black hair. Just the two of them, in this still monochrome, watching the snow as it drifts endlessly down for hours at a time, until she forgets what grass looks like and if summer even existed in the first place.

Will Charley be alright by himself? Is he prepared for the dead of winter, does he know what’s coming?

Maya is about to get frustrated that she’s not listening again, so Mia smoothly interrupts with a question, causing Maya to get distracted in the concentration it takes to answer her. Maya tells her about how the boys in her class get to learn about pokemon breeding, but all she ever does is read about Mystic Amie and the Sacred Urn, and did Mia know that it’s the most precious treasure in the Fey Clan? (They both do, of course, that’s why Maya was so upset when she broke it that one time, and the two of them had to glue it back together.)

Maya says the string of words with such forced focus, scrunching her face as she stumbles over the word precious, and then again at the word treasure. Mia knows that Maya doesn’t really know what she’s telling her older sister, only that she read it in a book and found it impressive, so she memorized it to regurgitate later in hopes of impressing others with her vocabulary.

So Mia smiles encouragingly and tries not to feel too relieved when one of the nuns call Maya in to start her chores, and Mia quickly extracts herself to find Charley.

She wonders if she should have brought him a blanket. What do grass types need in the winter? The Pecha bush grows year round, but as the weather worsens, the berries seem smaller and more shriveled with each passing day.

Charley throws himself at her almost as soon as she sits, and she’s bowled over by the sudden weight. So she lays on the cold ground for a moment, protesting as he leans his cold face into her neck, and she realizes that he might not survive the winter.

She picks him up carefully, and holds him for a long time, as he uses his vines to show her the last of the daffodils he found, struggling in the far corner of the garden. She takes it carefully when he presents it, and looks at how he had rolled stones over to the opening of his den, making a sort of decorative pathway.

So she strokes the top of his head, and tells him about her sister and her day, mind far away, dark with thoughts of the future.

* * *

 

Even with all this rumination, she isn’t ready for the first snowfall. Looking back, she isn’t sure why she didn’t prepare more, and why she had assumed that the winter would have the courtesy to wait until December to start.

The first snowfall isn’t that heavy, as far as snow in Kurain goes, but Maya still wakes her up in the middle of the night to tell her in an excited whisper: “Sis, it’s snowing, look!”

So Mia looks, groggily, resting her head against the windowsill as Maya curls up next to her, and they watch the snow coat the ground, dyed yellow by the illumination of the streetlights. Mia is drifting off again, when she thinks Charley, and is bolted awake.

What was she thinking? The snow is decent now, but during the height of winter, the piles will grow and swell taller than he is, and the temperature will plummet below zero. There are days where she isn’t even allowed outside. And she plans to leave Charley by himself during that, with no protection?

Perhaps she’s acting too rashly. But it’s three in the morning and all she can think about is Charley, slowly freezing to death, waiting for Mia to come and get him. So she tugs on her boots and tells her sister to wait there, she has to go check on something.

Maya, thankfully, only protests a little, but seems assuaged when Mia tells her that she’ll see the surprise as soon as Mia gets back with it. So Maya yawns, telling her she’ll wait, but Mia knows she’ll probably be asleep in the next few minutes.

So Mia tugs on her coat, kisses Maya’s temple, and steps out into the cold.

Charley depends on her. She can’t let him slip away like that, what was she thinking? Bulbasaurs weren’t meant for this type of climate, they preferred warmer, wet areas, not frigid, mountainous ones. So she sneaks into the garden and crouches nearby, peering anxiously into where she thinks the burrow is.  

“Charley,” she calls softly, her breath forming clouds. She feels her heart in her throat, feels the rush of cold air as snowflakes get caught in her hair. What if she’s too late? She calls him again, not daring to raise her voice above a whisper.

She sees his red eyes flicker in the moonlight, and he slowly makes his way over to her. She can hear him breathing heavily, and he’s shivering as he presses himself into her side. She scoops him up and tucks him into her coat for warmth. She can feel him shudder against her with each rattling breath, feel his icy skin seeping through her layers, as she cradles him and rushes back to Fey Manor.

She isn’t used to dealing with grass types. She forgets how susceptible they are to ice and cold, just as they are vulnerable to fire. She creaks the door open quietly, and works her boots off, praying that no one noticed she was away.

She turns on a lamp in her room, and Maya, as predicted, is sleeping by the window sill. Mia carefully places Charley on her bed before picking Maya up and tucking her into her own bed.

Charley looks at her with bleary eyes. She sees how brown and wilted his bulb looks, instead of it’s usual vivid, deep green. Still, he gives a pitiful cry of recognition when she sits down next to him and pulls him close, letting him seep in her warmth. She pulls up her blanket to cover them, creating a cocoon, and feels him sigh, sinking into her arms. She holds him until her worry ebbs as the snow continues to fall.

* * *

 

“Where did you find that?”

Mia blinks her eyes open to find her sister standing by her bed. She rubs her eyes, “Find what,” she murmurs, wondering if they’re supposed to be awake this early. It can’t be time for training already, right?

“That pokemon,” Maya says, pointing at something.

Mia frowns, pressing her face into her warm pillow. She doesn’t want to deal with Maya’s imagination, right now, she wants to go back to sleep before the nuns wake them up for the day. She feels her eyes drift close, and hopes that Maya will go away on her own.  

Then she remembers the events of last night, and her eyes snap open. She sits up suddenly, and is met with Charley’s bulb when she feels around behind her. She twists around to see him asleep. He looks better than how he did last night. His bulb has taken a more healthy hue, and his skin is a normal temperature. She feels weak with relief. She sighs.

“How much snow is outside?” She asks Maya, who frowns, knowing that Mia is trying to change the subject.

“A lot,” she says, peering over Mia’s shoulder. “What is it?”

“It’s a Bulbasaur,” she says carefully. Maya repeats the word, thoughtfully. She climbs onto the lower end of the bed to get a better view.

“Why is he here?”

“It was cold outside last night.”

“He doesn’t like the cold?”

Mia feels the tiredness around her eyes. She takes a deep breath, signing away the rest of her sleep for her sister’s endless series of questions. “No, he doesn’t like the cold,”

Maya stops to consider. “Was he assigned to you?”

“No,” Mia murmurs, “he’s my friend.”

“What’s his name?”

“Charley.”

“When is he going to wake up?”

“Soon.”

“Is he going to stay here with us?”

“I hope so,” Mia says, already thinking about what she’ll do if Aunt Morgan says he can’t stay. Knowing her, however, Mia could probably convince her aunt to allow her to have this. It’s not like Morgan cares very much about what her sister’s kids are up to, as long as they behave and stay out of the way. She barely seems to care what her missing sister is up to, after all.

Mia feels a familiar sadness welling up when she thinks about her mother. She wants to know what happened to her. She wants her mother back. It’s only been four years since she left, and that’s not a lot of time. It’s not too late for her to come back.  

Mia still desperately wants to find her and tell her it’s okay, she can still see how Maya’s grown and still be proud of them both. But Mia pushes these feelings away, stowing them under a motivation labelled as Law School, and brushes her hair out of her eyes.  

She focuses on Maya, instead, watching her sister mull over this new information. Her sister seems to be content with these answers, for now, quietly mooning over their new pet. Maya seems to hold her breath, trying to be as still as possible as Charley sleeps, so she doesn’t wake him.  

Watching Maya is enough to dispel any budding sadness. Mia lifts up a corner of the blanket, and Maya slips inside the covers, her tiny form still managing to fit on the small bed. Mia drapes her arm over her little sister and feels her breathing, as they both doze until the nuns come to wake them up.

* * *

 

So Charley stays in Fey Manor with them for the winter, and Mia refuses to let him out of her sight. The nuns purse their lips when they find him, but they don’t say anything. So he stays in the room, and Maya plays with him instead of doing her chores, and Mia divides her time as she always has.

It isn’t fair to say that she doesn’t notice time passing, because she does. She notices how the weather gets warmer and then colder again, and she notices how her Aunt starts watching her, curiously.

Mia notices how Maya grows lanky and restless, spending her days outside of fey manor, catching bug pokemon with huge nets and coming home covered in dirt. She sneaks the Gastly she was assigned out of the training hall and into her room, where they giggle together and talk in quiet voices as Mia tries to study.

Maya decorates her wrists with self made bracelets, round purple beads knocking together on a small bit of rope, holding them for Mia to tie around her wrist. Gastly cackles in the background, but Maya doesn’t find it creepy as she laughs along.

One day, Mia reaches into the mailbox, mechanically, routinely, and instead of feeling air and rust, she finds an envelope. She snatches it from the box, holding her breath as she rushes to her room. Mia opens it with shaking hands, eyes frantically scanning the page, until it feels like the wind has been knocked out of her. She sinks to her knees, holding the letter to her chest, dizzy with the rush of adrenaline and anticipation.

She takes a deep breath, and repeats the first line of the letter in her head. She gives a choked laugh, trying not to cry, and looks over to where Charley has approached her. She laughs again, feeling tears start to stream down.

“I did it, Charley.” She says, smiling. “I did it. I got accepted. I’m going to college.”

It doesn’t feel real. Charley doesn’t know what this means, but he climbs onto her lap anyway, and she holds him, feeling a mix of sadness and relief. She did it. Her hard work up to this point wasn’t a waste. She’s going to get out of the village. She’s going to be a defense attorney, and she’s going to find out what happened six years ago. She knows there’s more to the case than they say, and now she has a chance to find it herself.

She wipes her tears, standing slowly, making herself look presentable, and goes to find her aunt.

As expected, her aunt didn’t care much, only stopping to make a passive aggressive comment about student loans and how it’s good that Mia will finally be getting out of her hair. One less thing to worry about, Morgan had said.

But Mia doesn’t care about her pessimism. Her heart is overflowing with happiness and hope for the future, and she can’t help but feel a giddy smile when she thinks about starting a new life in the city. Majoring in pre-law is going to be tough, but she’s smart, and she knows she can do this, no matter how Morgan looks at her and sighs loudly, like she thinks no one can hear.

No, nothing is going to spoil this for her. Not Aunt Morgan and how she thinks Mia is wasting her time and money on a fruitless search, not the nuns and how they talk about the bloodlines and the branch family, not even how her sister pouts and refuses to talk to her for a few days when Mia breaks the news to her.

“It’s going to be okay, Maya,” Mia promises as her sister stares at the floor. “You knew this would happen one day. I won’t be that far away.”

Maya shakes her head stubbornly, and her bangs swing and cover her eyes. Mia crouches down and takes her hand, smoothing it from a fist to something she can actually interlock her fingers with.  

“You can come visit me and we’ll talk on the phone every day.” Maya finally looks up at her, “You’ll have to give me updates on how the Zubat nest on the roof is doing.”

“The babies were learning to fly the other night,” Maya says quietly, furiously trying to blink away her tears, “I-I wanted to watch them with you, but then I remembered that you’re leaving…”

Mia pulls her little sister into a hug when her tears spill over, holding her tightly as Maya hiccups into her neck, clutching her robes. They stay like that, Maya crying into her shoulder in wailing sobs, and Mia rubs her back and tries to make soothing noises.

“It’s okay,” She coos, pressing her lips into her sister’s hair. “It’s okay. We still have a lot of time before I leave.”

“I-I know,” Maya protests, her voice garbled from tears and muffled as she speaks into Mia’s shoulder, “But I’m gonna miss you.”

Mia smoothes her sister’s hair, “I know,” she says, “I’m going to miss you too.”

Maya pulls back, her face flushed, her eyes glassy with unshed tears, “Do you have to leave? Why can’t you stay here with me?”

Mia holds her sister’s hand, feeling how small it is in her own. “I’m going to the city to go to school. It’s something I can’t do here,” she tells her, “I won’t be gone forever. You’ll see me on Christmas, and over the summer.”

Maya still looks upset, but she nods, and throws herself into Mia’s arms again. So Mia wraps her arms around her again, and they stay like that for a long time.

* * *

 

When the time comes, Mia wakes up much later than she’s used to and looks out at the window to where the sun is rising over the village as it wakes. She looks at the dusty blue sky and feels the damp air, and thinks about how Kurain village is all she’s ever known. Soon she’s going to be in the city by herself, which is so much louder and harsh than her mountain life ever was.

She pulls on her sandals, looking at her meager suitcase. She doesn’t have much to take with her, but it still feels like she should have more than one suitcase. She’s fitting her whole life in here, and all she can manage is one.

A Pidgey calls out somewhere in the distance. She can hear someone talking downstairs, a low, indistinguishable murmur through the wooden floors. Her side of the room is barren, empty for the first time in her life. She’s never seen it like this. She wonders what awaits her in the city.

This is the last time she’ll stand in her room like this, as she is now. A part of her life is over, and she’s heading into the unknown with hardly a flashlight or a sense of direction, only a goal in mind.  

Everything will be different when she next stands in her room. She’ll have changed, whether she wants to or not, and she won’t fit in here the same way anymore. She’ll be a guest in her own home. Her sister will have grown, the village will have changed, and she’ll have changed, too, full of city slang and new foods and new clothes. Is she really ready to go, all by herself?

Mia looks over to where her sister sleeps, granted an excuse from her morning classes in order to say goodbye, and thinks about how Maya will adapt to living by herself, and Mia won’t be there to see her grow. Will Aunt Morgan look out for Maya like she’s supposed to?

Mia tries to quell the rush of protectiveness that rises in her when she thinks about her little sister, left alone in the village. Maya will be okay. She’s said it to herself so many times before.

Now, for the last part.

The screen door closes softly behind her. It was a cold morning like this that she had found Charley, she remembers. But now it’s the end of summer, and the end of their time together.

She makes her way to the garden where she had first found him, taking in how the garden has grown in the past two years. The pecha bush she had planted then has grown sturdier, setting down undeniable roots, weathered through the frost and freeze. She feels a familiar nostalgia pressing on her throat, along with the fear of leaving behind everything she’s ever known.

She looks at the carefully designed pattern of stones leading to where Charley is dozing, lazily tracing patterns into the dirt, eyes half lidded. She watches him as he doodles a flower into the dirt. She’s going to miss him. But she never registered him with any kind of pokeball, so he’s still technically a wild pokemon. Which means she has no right to take him.

And more than that, she isn’t allowed to bring wild pokemon into the dorm, only licensed ones. Pokemon are only allowed to not have pokeballs if they’re service pokemon, and she won’t try to pretend that Charley is one.

So as long as he isn’t officially hers, she can’t take him anywhere, which means she has to say goodbye. She doesn’t like the idea of shutting him inside a pokeball all day while she’s in class either. It’s better for him to stay here, with the sunshine and grass and nature.

Charley will be fine in Kurain by himself. He’ll have Maya, and they’ll keep each other company. Maya will remember to take care of him, and they’ll bond without Mia.

Charley looks up when he catches her scent, scrambling out of his nest to greet her. He calls out to her joyfully, propping himself up on her ankles excitedly as she reaches down to scratch his head. They’ve done this so many times before. Does he know that this is the last time? Is he going to wait for her tomorrow morning, wondering where she is? Will he think she’s abandoned him? Will he look for her? Will he know what it means when she says goodbye?

She sits down and allows him to nuzzle into her neck, making happy, squeaking sounds. She rubs behind his ears as he nudges her neck in response.

“Oh Charley,” she breathes, allowing them to stay in this position. After a moment, she swallows her tears and places him in front of her. He waits patiently, twisting a vine in the air.

“Charley,” she says, “I’m leaving the village. I’m going to be gone for a while.”

He looks at her. He doesn’t understand. Of course he wouldn’t. He’s still a wild pokemon. This is probably just another game for him.

She tries to find a way to make him understand. In the end, she simply reaches her hand out and tries to make the best of this, the last time they’ll see each other. He watches her even as he reaches to take her hand with his vine.

“Do you understand?” She asks, watching the way he entwines his vine with her fingers. “Do you know what this means?”

Charley blinks at her, cocking his head. Mia blinks away her tears, standing up hurriedly. She can’t afford to play with him today. She wishes she had another day, just one more, to spend doing nothing, going to her useless training classes and studying for a future that still seemed so far away. But now the future is here, and she has to go out to meet it.

She pulls her hand away from him, and he takes a few steps forward. He’s confused. Of course he is. He won’t understand what happened until much later. He doesn’t really know that this is the last time they’ll be together.

So she puts one foot in front of the other, putting more distance between her and Charley, ignoring the way he calls for her. She walks until she can pretend that the noise she’s hearing is something else entirely. But she knows what she’s really hearing, as she feels her suitcase handle in one hand and her sister’s tiny hand in the other.

Maya squeezes her hand as they stand at the gates and wait for Aunt Morgan to take them to the train station. Her aunt seems to take her time, but finally they see her approaching them, a strange, secretive smile on her face. Mia doesn’t have time to wonder about it when she feels something crashing into the back of her legs, causing her to topple onto the dirt path, feeling her head band against a rock and her scraped palm start to sting.

She picks herself up sloppily, but as soon as she sits up she’s bowled over again. Finally, her aunt makes a disapproving clicking noise somewhere above her, and Maya helps her pull her assailant off her. Mia stands up and dusts off her robes, clutching her briefcase in her hand, embarrassed. Charley runs anxious circles around her feet.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Morgan,” She blurts, feeling the heat in her face as her aunt studies the scene before her, “I don’t know what’s gotten into him, I-”

“He was causing quite the scene at Fey manor,” her aunt interrupts coolly, “He wouldn’t stop wailing and scratching on the door. It was incredibly bothersome.”

Mia looks down, and opens her mouth to apologize. But her aunt isn’t finished.

“I won’t have him screeching all year. It disturbs the Bellsprouts.” Morgan fishes something out of her robes, and holds it out to Mia. Mia takes it from her, and it’s only when she looks at it does she realize what it’s holding.

“Aunt Morgan,” She says, “I-”

“Now, now,” he aunt scolds, “We don’t have all day. We wouldn’t want to be late, would we?”

So Mia looks at the apricorn ball in her hand, and crouches down to Charley’s level, where he looks up at her with anticipation, bouncing from paw to paw.

“Charley,” she says, “Do you want to come with me?”

Charley eagerly presses his nose  into the apricorn ball in response, and it rocks gently in her hand, three times. The ball is round and full and warm in her hand, and she thinks about how all the city kids with have industrial pokeballs, all the same red and white, and she’s the only one with a special apricorn ball from home, made only in her village. It’s like taking a piece of home with her at all times, something she can’t find anywhere else.

Aunt Morgan starts walking, so Mia drops the ball in her bag, taking her suitcase in one hand and Maya’s hand in the other, stepping outside of Kurain. It’s the farthest she’s ever been from home. She’s going to go farther and farther every day.

She hugs her sister at the train station, and promises to call her as soon as she gets in. They’ll exchange letters, and she’ll take pictures of everything. She looks at her aunt, unsure, and Morgan simply nods at her in response, very business-like.

And Mia is reminded again that there’s no real affection in their relationship, that Morgan is simply satisfied that Mia isn’t in competition to usurp her power and become the rightful Master. Morgan tolerates Mia because she isn’t a threat. So they nod at each other, an acknowledgement of this dynamic, as if the transaction is complete, the contract is up, and Mia is stepping out of Kurain politics on her own. But she tries not to dwell on it as she sits onto the train, carried forward by her dreams and ambitions for the future.

So she waves to Maya from the train, watching as distance takes them farther and farther away from each other, and she’s still waving even as Maya is too small to see. She puts her hand against the vibrating train window, watching the trees in the mountains rush past, taking her farther and farther away from the life she’s known.

With every passing moment, her surroundings turn unfamiliar, and there’s no real way of knowing what exactly will come next.

She’s alone in the train car for the next two hours, so she presses the apricorn ball and releases Charley onto the seat next to her. He looks uneasy as the train sways beneath him, but when he looks up at her, he doesn’t seem to mind it all that much. So he tucks his feet under himself, and looks out the window as the mountains pass.

She’s content to watch the scenery pass, for now, so she doesn’t look back into the car until she feels something rough poking her side. She glances over. Charley blinks up at her.  

Except it’s different now, he’s bigger and the bulb on his back has shed it’s hard outer layer to expose the young pink flower inside, now nestled securely on his back. Long, broad leaves with brittle edges hang off the side, bending slightly from where the train car constricts them. His paws have more of an edge to them, going from soft and round to a more firm appearance, with the beginning of pearly white claws sticking out.

His skin has lost the pale green hue of it’s youth, darkening into a more turquoise color, and the rich green spots stand out starkly against his newly toned skin. His fangs stick out more prominently, and she remembers how he had teethed on her sandals a few weeks ago.

But when he blinks up at her, he still has the same kind red eyes, scanning her for judgement.

She smiles, running her hand along his forehead. He closes his eyes at her touch, making a low, rumbling noise in contentment, but it’s still him, no matter what he looks like now. She vaguely feels annoyed that she didn’t get to see his first evolution, but she promises herself that she’ll pay attention when the next one comes.

She feels an acute sense of gratitude, thankful that he’s here with her, that she doesn’t have to be completely alone. He rests his head in his lap and she scratches behind his ear, idly. The bulb on his back is a pleasant pink, and the foliage wraps nicely around his body. He may be too big to fit on her lap comfortably anymore, but it’s still Charley.  

She wonders what her life will be like, this time next year. She’ll have met so many people she doesn’t even know exist yet. Hopefully her roommate will have a nice pokemon, and not a Skuntank or a Garbodor. She knows those are common in the city, and that’s why it always smells so bad there. It’s nothing like the mountain air she’s used to.

Charley sighs. She thinks about how this will be different for him too, and all the new experiences they’ll have together. She’s glad that she’s with him. She thinks that he is too.

* * *

 

Life in the city is different. She had known this, and yet she’s still unprepared for the noise and the bustle, all of the people rushing around, and the lack of color. The sidewalks are gray and the streets are black and the buildings are tall and dark, and all the people wear business suits and look down at crinkled newspapers when they walk.  

She stands off to the side, holding her single suitcase in one hand, and Charley’s ball in the other. She had known he would be overwhelmed by the city, so she wants to ease him into it, and it will be easier when she isn’t floored by just how many people there are.

There’s a never ending barrage of noise, people talking and laughing, a staccato of car horns, a symphony of street performers, the constant pound of leather shoes on the pavement, the thunderous rumble of buses, the shrieking of Raticates fighting over scraps of garbage in the alley.

It all goes on at once, she thinks, as she coughs on thick car exhaust, watching the way a Pidove swoops down to peck at a french fry on the sidewalk. She thinks about herself, clutching her small suitcase, with her loud wooden sandals, clad in strange purple accolade robes and her Magatama pulsing on her neck.

She swallows her feelings of discomfort, reciting the directions in her head, she has them written down on the paper she’s currently wringing in her hands. It’s hardly lunch time yet. But maybe Maya is eating already, she’s always had a big appetite.

She wishes her sister was here. Even more, Mia wishes she was back in Kurain, where the air was clear and quiet and peaceful, and all her worries waited for her, years down the road. Life in Kurain was like living in a bubble, where all the stress of life couldn’t reach her, and everything that happened outside was on a different planet, completely removed and unattainable.

But now she’s here, a stranger in a foreign land, trying to make herself as small as possible, knowing how she stands out among the speeding current of the city. She tries to look like she’s walking with a purpose. This is her life now. This is going to be her life for the next few years.

She passes the Courthouse, and she stops to look at it’s impressive loom. She can see long golden halls inside, and is filled with a giddy anticipation when she pictured herself there, going to court as a defense attorney, badge shining proudly on her lapel.

She looks at the people passing through the doors, wondering who they are, which side of the bench they’re on, and what they’re really fighting for. She can’t wait to be one of them. She wonders if she’ll ever go up against one of the people she sees here. It all seems so far away, and yet so close at the same time.

She finds a nearby bench and releases Charley to the ground in front of her. He springs up in surprise at the dirty sidewalk, and swings his gaze around menacingly, as if to scare the city into total silence.

When that doesn’t seem to work, he frowns at her, as if to complain about coming here, but she muffles her laughter with her palm. Charley jumps when a car horn fills the air, and watches warily at the people passing by.  

Other than the tension in his eyes, he seems to be adjusting.

“Look, Charley,” she says, pointing to the courthouse, “That’s where I’m going to be. That’s why I came here.”

He dutifully looks over to where she points, but he doesn’t seem to care, as he sniffs the air and wrinkles his nose at the pollution.

“I know it’s not home,” she says, drawing him back into his ball, “But it will have to do for now.”

* * *

 

Undergrad passes in a flurry of paper and coffee cups, until she manages to graduate early, smiling for pictures with a long black robe and a diploma, and a drive in her telling her that she can’t stop now, she has to keep going.  

She gets into Law School, but she doesn’t stop working hard. She takes everything her professors give her, fueled by a motivation that’s been building inside her ever since that fateful December, all those years ago, when her mother left. She’s closer now, so much closer than she’s ever been. She can’t afford to slack off now.

Charley sleeps by the window and raises a small garden in the corner of the room, and he stretches out in the sun, unraveling his plant in relaxation. He absorbs the sun’s rays, as Mia sits hunched over her desk, plowing through dates and court cases, reciting the evidence laws under her breath.

She divides her time again, as she always has, between calling her sister, studying, and relaxing, which means laying in the sun with Charley and giving her mind a rest from thinking for a few hours. Then she gets up and goes back to work.

Her sister takes the train in to meet her on the weekends, and they go for burgers. It’s unlike any of the food they have in Kurain, and Maya is instantly hooked. It becomes part of the routine. Pick up Maya, go for burgers, spend time with her and Charley at the park, talking about everything they can think of to tell each other.

Mia finds that even in the rush of her life, she still gets to watch Maya grow, even though they’re hours apart. Maya spends the years growing into a lanky preteen, all knees and elbows and energy, as she chatters about her training with her Haunter buzzing around her head.

So Mia spends her days like that, working through her loans at a minimum wage job, studying until her eyes hurt, and feeling like she’s running and running, and the end is right there, and she’s so close. This feeling doesn’t ever really go away, but she finds a way to smother it, to ignore it. She’ll get nowhere if she burns herself out. Sometimes the best thing to do is to put the book down and try again tomorrow.  

Charley approves of this strategy. Sometimes, he reaches up with his vines and covers her eyes, or snatches her book out of her lap. Sometimes he hides her pencils on the highest point he can reach, or under the bed. He gently takes her hands with his vines, when he sees how they start to shake, and she fills the hour with her eyes closed, listening to the sound of his low, comforting murmuring as he talks to her even though she can’t understand him.

Charley helps her take breaks. She remembers when she used to hold him in the garden and teach him about what she’s been learning this week. She distantly misses her childhood, distantly wishes her mother never left, so Mia could have had the life she was supposed to, instead of breaking her back in law school.

But then she feels guilty for feeling that way, and tries her best to forget. So she feels the warmth of her eyelids, feels how heavy her body is, and allows Charley to lull her to sleep.

* * *

 

Lana uses the phrase “intellectual attraction”, and Mia agrees. But what they don’t say is that it’s really so much more than that, it’s every other type of attraction too.

She meets Lana in her first year of Law school, though Lana already on her third year. Mia was auditing one of her classes, and maybe it was the way they kept catching each other’s eyes, or maybe it was something in the air, but it seemed natural when they walk out of class together, discussing something the professor had said.

Being with Lana is as easy as breathing. Mia never thought she’d find someone like this, someone who makes her feel calm and at peace, someone who makes sense of the world around her just by being in her presence. Lana is logical and sensible, she reminds Mia to breathe, and looks at her like she’s the most precious thing in the world.

It’s an exciting, dizzying feeling, the warmth that fills her when she holds Lana’s hand, and Lana is everything she wants to be, smart and quick and witty. They help each other study, and they talk about their younger sisters and lack of parents. They have so much in common. They’re both goal driven, and dedicated, and determined. Mia can’t decide if she wants to be Lana or if she just wants to be with her.

Lana has a Feebas. Mia had laughed the first time she met Lana’s pokemon, as the Feebas glared at her through the fish tank. Mia apologizes. Lana sniffs that she will evolve into a Milotic one day, one of the most majestic, poised pokemon there is, and then no one will tease her.  

Lana kisses her softly before class, and Mia’s heart soars in her chest. Lana is her equal intellectually, sure, but also emotionally, and Mia thinks that she wouldn’t mind having her by her side forever.

But they both know that Lana will graduate at the end of this year and join the police precinct as a detective. They both know that they won’t see each other after this year, and if they ever meet again, it will be from the defense bench and the witness stand, worlds apart.

So they use the time they have together, sharing stories and hungry kisses, and  Mia doesn’t think about next year, or the future. The only thing she thinks about is Lana’s hands in her hair as she falls backwards onto the bed, hooking a leg around Lana’s waist.

Being with Lana isn’t anything she’s ever known. But somehow, it’s something that’s always made sense, like the universe was just waiting for her to understand how something like this could exist.

* * *

 

But Lana graduates, and her phone calls dwindle from once a week, to once every two weeks, and then they both start getting too busy with life to keep up with emails. Mia tries not to miss it too much. Sometimes these things happen.

Her life falls into a steady rhythm, sorted neatly into piles, and she finds that she enjoys the workload as much as she enjoys relaxing and talking to Charley. Her life seems to slow into a steady stream of law textbooks and lectures, as she fills notebooks with her writing as Charley swats at falling leaves outside.

She enjoys his quiet companionship, and finds that she doesn’t feel as isolated as she did when she first came here. She’s settled into the pulse of city life, feeling like she belongs here, among the chatter and constant hum of cars. Charley seems to have adapted as well, he doesn’t shy or flinch away from sudden noises anymore.

She looks up from the chapter on Double Jeopardy and realizes that she doesn’t remember what being in Kurain felt like. It feels like a distant memory, and she can’t recall day to day life with the certainty she once had.

She remembers moments, like the chill of river water and how the fog looks in the morning. She remembers dirty feet and itchy robes and sitting in one place for too long, trying to meditate. She remembers her teachers being frustrated at her lateness and she remembers watching the snow fall with her sister, in the middle of the night, but these memories don’t make up a year.

There’s so much she’s forgotten between then and now, things she swore she’d always remember.

It’s been a long time since she was back. When she thinks of home, she instinctively imagines her tiny off campus apartment, full of clothes that now seem as normal as her robes and sandals ever were. She’s gone from scraped knees and plans for the future to walking with a purpose, so close to her goals, she could reach out and touch them.

She’s learned to ignore the constant noise, to walk faster on the sidewalk, and breathe in the stench of warm garbage without gagging on it or missing how the cold mountain air would feel in her mouth in comparison.

The city is strange, true, but home was always stranger. And city life suits her now, more so than village life ever did. It just took her until now to realize it, but maybe a part of her had always known that she never fit in in the village.

That’s what she’s thinking as she checks the address she had written down for Grossberg & co. Law Firm. The man himself was unimpressive, and she doesn’t particularly want to describe the memory. But she impressed him with her interview, so he had given her an internship, and when she passes the Bar Exam, a job.  

Thankfully, it’s a paid internship, but she doesn’t expect to do anything more than sort files and go on coffee runs. It that’s what it takes to get her foot in the door of the legal world, then she doesn’t mind.

Mr. Grossberg himself isn’t in the office much, but even if he was, he runs a very lax operation. It’s a relaxed enough atmosphere that she brings Charley with her, knowing that he’ll behave as she does menial tasks from her corner.

The other interesting thing thing about this office is that Robert Hammond works here. She watches him as he lazily flips through files in the office. She knows exactly what kind of person he is. But he’s connected to DL-6, so she keeps an eye on him until she can find the right time to ask him what he knows about the case. She’s confident that he  doesn’t pay attention enough to recognize her last name, and she’ll work some useful information out of him.

Hammond is out of the office today, working a case with Mr. Grossberg. She’s dividing her time between sorting old through old evidence records and studying for her next test. The rain outside fills the room with an uncomfortable, humid air, even with the open window.

Her other coworker, Diego Armando, leans back in his chair and sips his second cup of coffee. He’s lucky that he prefers to make it himself, or she could see him quickly spending his life savings on take out coffee. He often tells her the blend numbers and how the quality matters, even though she’s obviously too busy to listen to him.  

He’s an unimpressive man, who boasts too much for her liking. He seems like the kind of person who was a jock in high school, and grew up overconfident due to his conventionally attractive looks. She’s only seen him in court a few times, and he uses too many cheap metaphors for her liking.

Diego says something to compare the rain outside to a certain blend of coffee. Mia tries not to roll her eyes, wondering if Diego thinks he sounds smart when he uses such basic, flat comparisons, as if he’s the only one in the room who went to law school and the rest of them are just too dumb to analyze his words.

She hates guys like him. She’d love to tell him to shut up and let her work, but he knows that he’d twist her words into some sexist insult on her time of the month, so she grits her teeth and turns a page in her textbook.  

She can go back to her dorm in an hour, where it’ll be quiet and peaceful. She’s getting sick of the smell of coffee every day, anyway. But the pay is good and she’s closer to Robert Hammond, so she tries to relax.

Diego says another coffee metaphor, louder this time, like if he just keeps talking to nobody she’ll have to take pity on him and put aside her work entertain this fake deep conversation. She hates men like these, shallow, and entitled, and-

“-attire suitable for the workplace, that’s one of my rules.”

Mia whips around. “Can you be quiet? Please?” Well, she didn’t last very long on ignoring him.

Diego smiles, like a shark, and he probably think it makes him look sexy, but it makes Mia want to throw her book at him and scratch that smug grin off his face. She hates that she’s giving him what he wants by engaging with him, like she’s available for him to play with.

“Feisty today?” He looks at her lazily, and she knows it’s an act, he’s trying to make her look like the hysterical one compared to him. “It isn’t good to keep fillies cooped up like this, they need to run free.”

Charley lifts his head from the corner of the room, sensing her mood sour. He abandons his project of organizing the fake flowers in a vase, watching the exchange through narrowed eyes.

“Can you stop comparing women to animals?” Mia snaps, glaring at him, and she knows she shouldn’t let him get to her, but she’s just so tired of him trying to be smooth and breaking her focus. “I’m trying to concentrate. Just go home if you’re done for the day.”

Diego flashes her another cocky grin. “Can’t I try to engage you in conversation? It’s such a bore to be here by myself, alone with the bitter darkness of coffee… and my thoughts.”

She hates him.

“What’s the matter, kitten? Too upset to speak? As I’ve often said, anger is the last refuge of the pathetic.”

Charley, bless him, bolts over to her side with vines raised in challenge, stomping his feet and swinging his head. Diego looks interested in this development, as he raises an eyebrow, but remains unmoved, slouched in his seat.

“No control over your emotions or your pokemon, huh ki-”

Charley smacks him with a whip. Mia lets out a cheer, knowing that this is childish of her, to feed into this, but also really wanting this to happen.  

She should have better control over her pokemon. She should call Charley back and apologize before she loses this position and what little reputation she’s managed to have, but she doesn’t think about of any of that as Diego square his shoulders, that condescending grin finally knocked off his face.

He studies her before standing in one fluid motion. He releases a pokemon she’s never seen before, and shoves his hand in his pockets.

The pokemon he’s sent out doesn’t resemble anything she’s seen. It has long, sharp pincers with black tips, curled into a scythe. It’s covered in tough blue plates, with yellow linings and black spots on the hinges.

On it’s back it has two long black blades, as well as three sharp points jutting out of it’s neck. The points are white, dipped in red, and are currently flared towards her in an challenging fashion, making the pokemon seem larger and more intimidating. It has a broad, black face with two distinct red spots at the center, though it’s natural eyes are on the side of it’s head, white and beady and watching her. The pokemon stands tall on two legs and hunches forward, swinging its spiked tail menacingly.

“You sure you want to go down that route, kitten?”

She’ll do it if he never calls her “kitten” again. She’d fight him herself if it means that he’ll never speak a word to her again.

Mia looks at the pokemon he sent out. She can’t even begin to tell what type it is. She glances at Charley, who is so much smaller in comparison. Charley nods and widens his stance. She’s never battled before. She’s seen it on TV, but she doesn’t really know what to do. What even are the names of things she’s supposed to call out?

“What kind of pokemon is that?” She says instead, trying to buy time. Is she sure she wants to do this?

“It’s an Armaldo. He’s an old friend of mine.”

Something about that strikes her as odd, but she ignores it. “If I win, don’t ever speak to me again unless it’s business related.”

The arrogant smile is back. Diego bares his teeth. “And if I win, I’ll take you to dinner. Deal?”

“Deal. But let’s go outside.” Maybe this isn’t worth destroying the office over. But there’s no such limitations in the empty level of the parking garage.

“In this rain?” Diego’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“Are you afraid of a challenge?” She bites back, tugging on her jacket. “If you stay here you forfeit, and I’ll report you to Mr. Grossberg for harassment anyway.”

She stomps out of the office, hearing Diego scramble along after her. She walks confidently, with a purpose, and Charley matches her stride. She feels Diego following her, so she doesn’t say anything to Charley, simply looking at him. He nods again, showing his fangs, and she’s more than confident about how this is going to go down. So what if she’s never battled a day in her life? She’ll learn by doing.

They reach the Parking Garage and ascend to the fourth floor. This building is hardly ever full enough to warrant a fourth floor, and it is empty today, as usual.

So they stand evenly apart, and Mia balls her hands into fists. She’s going to show him what happens when he underestimates her. She’s going to make him take her seriously, just like she’s going to make the entire legal world take her seriously. So what if this is horrifically unprofessional and she’ll be mortified when she thinks of it later. So what? She isn’t thinking that now.

But all thoughts along that line leave when Diego leers at her. “Let’s go, then. We all know you’re not a lawyer or a pokemon trainer. In fact, the only reason old Grossberg let you in here is because of how you dress.”

She doesn’t have to say anything. Charley springs into action, sending a flurry of razor leaves spinning towards them. Armaldo raises it’s armored arms to block them, while Diego unceremoniously throws himself out of the way.

“Hey!” he calls, regaining his footing. “Watch it!”

“Oops,” Mia shouts back, “Watch where you’re standing before looking at others, that’s one of my rules!”

Diego shouts something at Armaldo, and the lumbering pokemon leaps at Charley, surprisingly agile despite its stature. It swings it’s scythe-like arms, slashing down at Charley with white energy, but Charley nimble ducks out of the way, landing neatly out of Armaldo’s range.

Charley doesn’t waste time, taking the next moment to shoot vines out, striking them neatly down Armalo’s front with a satisfying slapping sound. It rings through the parking garage, as her Ivysaur lets out a triumphant cry. Charley circles his opponent, light on his feet, searching for an opening as Armaldo swipes at the vines as they approach.  

The vines dart in, hitting Armaldo in the eye, and Charley takes the moment of blindness to swiftly wrap his vines around Armaldo’s legs and neck. Charley uses gravity, as well as Armaldo’s own towering build to upset his balance, pulling his top and bottom in two different directions.

With his feet swept out from underneath him, Armaldo is pulled to the ground, hitting the pavement with a heavy thud, hissing loudly at the impact as it wildly swings it’s scythes around to cut the vines.  

Charley holds Armaldo there, while Mia scrambles for some sort of strategy to take advantage of this situation over the sound of Diego yelling an order a few feet away.

Suddenly, Armaldo stops struggling, slamming a scythe into the pavement. Pointed stones erupt from the entry, hurtling towards Charley. Charley withdraws his vines and dives out of the way, but a stone catches him in midair, and he hits the ground with a gasp, sliding  a few feet across the parking lot. Charley digs his claws in and pulls himself to his feet, breathing heavily.  

Mia holds her breath, watching Armaldo drag himself to an upright position, shaking his head in frustration, advancing on her Ivysaur. Before she can say anything, Charley send out another round of pointed leaves, and a few of them hit the mark, slicing through Armaldo’s thick hide, causing him to pause a few feet away.  

Armaldo hunches over, glaring, and whether it’s out of exhaustion or as a fear tactic, Mia doesn’t know.The pokemon eye each other warily, breathing heavily and maintaining the distance.

Diego calls something, but Mia ignores him, still trying to anticipate his pokemon’s moves. Armaldo sends more pointed stones towards Charley, who uses his vines as leverage, sending him over the projectiles and slamming roughly onto Armaldo’s shoulder.

Armaldo lets out a series of pained clicks as it wobbles, before reaching up with a pointed claw and slashing at Charley, throwing her Ivysaur to the ground.  Mia winces as Charley hits the ground hard, using the momentum to roll to his feet, panting heavily. He favors one side, holding himself low to the ground and stumbling slightly as his legs buckle beneath him.

Mia watches the scene before her, Charley’s labored breathing as he stands in front of Armaldo’s menacing height, and she realizes that this isn’t right. She hates to see him in pain, and it never should be because of her. She’s supposed to protect him, and care for him, not throw him in harms way to fight her battles for her.

She’s the one who has a problem with Diego, and she’d hate herself if Charley got seriously injured because of it. So Armaldo’s scythes start to glow with energy, and Charley’s vine shake with exertion, and Mia hears her heels clicking rapidly against the pavement before she realizes that she’s run out onto the battlefield.

“Stop!” She calls, watching thankfully as Armaldo’s scythes return to it’s normal color, and he seems more interested in watching the scene than he does with finishing the battle.

Nothing would be worth losing Charley, her faithful companion, her friend. He trusts her to make the right decisions. He’d follow her anywhere. She can’t just take advantage of that. There’s no reason for Charley to be in pain like this, not her own pride, or her disrespectful coworkers. She can’t believe she let herself get so carried away with this.

She kneels down beside him and he turns to look at her with questioning eyes. She pulls him into a hug and wonders how full time pokemon trainers have the heart to do this every day. She apologizes to him, again and again, and he nudges her with his head in response.

She pulls back and looks into his warm red eyes. He trusts her. He doesn’t blame her for any of this. And they’re both okay. So she calls him back into the apricorn ball and stands up to meet Diego, who watches with interest from a few feet away.

She meets his gaze evenly. “I forfeit,” she tells him, “But I won’t tolerate any more of your disrespect. I came here because I have a job to do, and I’m not going to let you distract me from that.”

She turns away before Diego can respond, hearing her footsteps ring through the empty space. She’s still fuming, but for a different reason, as the elevator descends. She let herself get carried away. But she’s here for two reasons, and that’s to find out more about Richard Hammond and DL-6, and to pass the bar exam. That’s it. She’s not here for Diego. He’s inconsequential. He has no part in her goals.

So she’s not going to let this get to her. She’s going to apologize to Charley, she’s going to study for the bar exam, and she’s going to find out the truth. It’s what she’s dedicated her life to. It’s not like she didn’t know that there would be men who refused to take her seriously. It’s just time she learned to leave them behind.

* * *

 

She passes the bar exam and allows Diego to take her out to lunch to celebrate, mostly because she’s too tired to really think about it. She thinks that now she’s an official lawyer, he’ll take her more seriously. And if not, she’ll make him swallow his pride along with the boiling coffee he makes every day.

But in the past few months, he’s been more civil to her, like he’s supposed to. She won’t say that she appreciates it, because she should just expect it. So they say hello in the morning like normal people and they do their work in separate corners, and she hands him files he needs for court and he says thank you, kitten. (That’s one annoying habit he’s hasn’t dropped, but she tolerates it).

She never does get a direct apology, but he does stop lecturing her on things she already knows about, and he stops waxing poetic about coffee when she’s trying to work, and he doesn’t comment on the size of her skirt or spew out purposefully vague yet condescending life rules like he thinks she can’t hear him. So they manage okay in the cramped office.

It turns out, beneath all the bullshit and misogyny, Diego is a decent guy. That’s still about the nicest thing she can say about him, though

So she lets him take her to lunch because she’s so beyond exhausted, but also full of pride and happiness in the form of a tiny yellow badge, pinned to her lapel.

Diego grins at her, and she knows now that it’s because he’s proud of her rather than because he’s creepy. He had said, “Good job, kitten. Let’s celebrate over lunch, my treat,” and she had rolled her eyes and pulled her hair out from under her scarf, making her way to the door.

So she spears a fork through her salad and thinks about calling her sister down for burgers next weekend to celebrate Mia being an official attorney.

Diego, as expected, ordered coffee, but not before giving their waitress very specific instructions. Mia suspects that the girl simply smiled and nodded for most of it, and only pretended to write it down.

So Diego smiles at her, and he is always, always smiling, and asks her how the test went. She’s just glad it’s over, really. They stay on that topic for a while, reminiscing over law school, sipping warm drinks as the air outside is cold and wet.

The snow in the city isn’t anything like the snow in her childhood, which fell into perfect white piles and the frost hooked deep into the ground. The snow in Kurain gave the entire village an otherworldly atmosphere, bringing them closer to the spirits they try to contact.

It draped itself over everything, weighing down trees, untouched except for the few pokemon that braved the cold, and an occasional snowman. Winters in Kurain muffled the noise, as if no one dared speak above a whisper, and the sky was gray for weeks on end, and it was peaceful and quiet and still, just Mia in her frozen world.

But the city doesn’t ever stop moving, even as the snow builds and builds. City workers come in the morning to disturb the scene, dumping salt and little white pebbles on roads to melt the ice and keep the roads wet and clear. They shove it into piles and never stop moving, constantly brushing ice off trees and compacting snow under their boots. Ice and slush is a constant swirl by the sidewalk curb, dyed gray and brown with city filth, splashing through cars at red lights and pedestrians on the crosswalk.  

The city is always melting, always trying to shake off the lingering dampness, plowing streets and brushing off cars and muttering with clouds of breath while waiting underneath dripping bus stop overhangs. The city is compact and loud and moving, and Mia is pulled along with the current into the office with snow encrusted boots, with wet, icy hair and hands pinched pink as she strips her layers and lays her briefcase on her desk.

The snow today is simply the aftermath of last week's storm, all puddles iced over with the lingering morning frost.

And she is inside a rather muted cafe, a low stream of murmuring around her, under yellow lights and vinyl booths and a mug of hot chocolate warming her palms as she rests her elbows on the table.

Diego doesn’t seem to have the same introspection as her. He’s talking about a case he wrapped up yesterday, carding his hands through his wild brown hair as he recounts a particularly rowdy witness.

She looks at him as he talks, gesturing with one hand and sipping black coffee with the other. He’s lively, animated, energetic. She looks at his tanned skin and his broad chest, and his stark red shirt, and thinks that if she had to describe him in one word, it would be warm.

Diego says something and smirks at her, and Mia looks at his sharp jawline and thinks that this is the kind of guy she’s supposed to fall in love with. If this was a movie, he would have won her over by now, and she would be expected to be just as committed.

But Diego is intriguing and handsome, sure, but she isn’t sure of the rest of his depth. He still seems shallow to her, and she doesn’t know if he’s even capable of taking things seriously.  

He’s constantly trying to brighten situations with a poorly timed joke or a word for the wise, he is always talking and breathing and moving, and he’s so alive. His eyes are bright and sharp and warm, as he looks at her, and Mia sips her hot chocolate to hide her face.

Diego is a pretty face, sure, and he did survive law school, but is there anything more to him than that?  

Mia has a mission. She’s known this since she was twelve years old, what she was going to spend the rest of her life doing, and exactly how to get there. She knows what she wants and she is working towards it every day.

But Diego doesn’t seem to have any sort of plan. He laughs loud and deeply, and his voice is rich and captivating as he launches into another story of his early lawyer days. Diego either lives in the present or the past, but he never puts any real thought into the future. He lives recklessly and it shows, and he has so many life mottos that Mia doesn’t think he really remembers them all.

Mia wonders if that will ever come back to haunt him, his inability to think of the future, how locked in the past he seems. Will he be stuck on this day, this maybe-something between the two of them, even after she’s moved on?  

“What’s got you so thoughtful, kitten?”

There’s that nickname again. He doesn’t use it every time he addresses her, but he says it enough that she won’t forget it.

“Just wondering about you,” she says, “you seem like the kind of guy to have a fire type pokemon.”

Diego grins at her, but then again, that isn’t surprising or especially noteworthy. “The game picks the players, in this life.”

She ignores his pretentiousness. “So the fact that Armando and Armaldo sound so similar is just a coincidence?”

Diego looks away and scratches his face, “That might have something to do with my cousin’s sense of humor, actually.”

She finds that it’s easier to talk to him after this, now that they’ve found a common ground. So she leans back in her seat and smiles lightly, and when he mirrors her expression, it’s without any false bravado or sly flirtations. And they have a conversation, like normal human beings, for the first time since she’s known him.

* * *

 

A month later, the Terry Fawles case lands a huge blow in her confidence. It shakes her right down to her core, and for a while after that, she can’t even think about the courtrooms without feeling sick about about what happened there.

Mr. Grossberg gives her some time off. She sits in her small apartment and stares at the floor while Charley tidies up her bookcase and sends her worried glances.

Dahlia Hawthorne, she thinks, feeling cold. Dahlia Hawthorne killed those people, and she got away with it. She played the system and she won, and Mia let her get away. The whole courtroom let her get away. They failed.  

She remembers the sound of Mr. Fawles’ body hitting the floor with a shudder. She remembers the confusion, the fear, the panic, as the gallery uproar and the Judge banging his gavel, and Diego standing in front of her so she can’t look at the body when they take it away.

Terry Fawles trusted her. She was going to find the truth for him. It was her first trial, her first real test as a lawyer and she was doing so well. She was going to show that arrogant upstart Miles Edgeworth what she was made of. She was going to impress Diego, show herself that this is what she was meant to be doing.

She remember’s Diego’s voice, heavy and weary in defeat, telling her that the only time a lawyer can cry is when it’s all over, as his cut up hand bleeds onto the bench, onto shards of ceramic and tan wood polish, leaking out through his clenched fist.

But she stares at the floor and she doesn’t want to cry. It doesn’t feel real, or final, she just can’t believe that it happened at all. She’s distantly aware that she’s at least lucky that Maya couldn’t make it in to see her first trial. At least she didn’t have to expose her sister to that.

She was supposed to call and tell Maya all about it, but Mia doesn’t want to think about it.

She sighs, and Charley wanders over to rub against her leg in support. She goes over the trial again and again, watching Terry’s face drain of all color, watching his eyes drift back, but she can’t do anything except think about how she could have stopped it from happening.

She needs to get out of the house. It’s not good for her to sit inside all day, just thinking. She needs to get back to work. She still has her original goal, she just needs to get back on track.  

But for today, she listens to the dial tone as Charley threads his vine through her fingers, holding her hand. Fifteen minutes later, Diego shows up on her doorstep with two cups of coffee and a sympathetic smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

So they sit on her old couch and turn on some sitcom. Diego hands her her coffee and says it’s decaf, with milk and sugar, wrinkling his nose in distaste as he grumbles that coffee is meant to be taken black. She feels the warmth seep into her hand and she sits close to him, shoulders barely touching, as the studio audience laughs faintly in the background.

She chews her lip. She’s been given time off, but she knows that Diego hasn’t been going to the office anymore either. He’s been trying to track down Dahlia, just as stuck on this case as she is. They poured through the files on the kidnapping incident together, but they can’t find anything useful. She supposes that she can’t criticize him there, since she’s planned her whole life around the aftermath of DL-6, so she’ll let him look for Dahlia if that’s what helps him cope. What’s the worst that could happen that hasn’t happened already? (There are plenty of bad things that could happen, but she doesn’t let herself think about it.)

Mia lets her head fall on Diego’s shoulder, hearing him laugh quietly as a character on TV delivers a punch line. She sips her coffee and watches the theme song play in a jovial, upbeat tune, spreading canned, commercialized joy through her small apartment.

She’s grateful for Diego's presence, for once in her life. It’s something she never thought would happen, but he’s found the decency to be quiet and not add his constant commentary to anyone who would listen.  

He’s become more laid back, she finds, but maybe it’s just because they had to watch Terry Fawles take his last breath just a few feet away, as they stood there, frozen amongst the panic and noise and bright lights in the courtroom as she called his name, feeling the deep ache of shock in her chest.

So Diego is quiet and he lets her rest her head on his shoulder. He doesn’t comment or flirt or try to put his arm around her, he simply sips his coffee and looks at the screen. She can see the light from the television reflecting in his dark eyes.

Diego was different during the trial. A year ago, she wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he was patient and he allowed her to take charge without belittling her. He referred to her by her name and helped her through her logic. They were doing so well. They were a team. They had each other's back, and they were so close to to the truth. And despite all that effort, the day ended in tragedy, and Dahlia Hawthorne walked out of their lives and took the truth with her.

 _Th-That’s enough...please…_  She shudders involuntarily as Mr. Fawles’ words ring in her head, her first clue that something had just gone terribly wrong. She remembers the way he had looked, and how she and Mr. Edgeworth had called for the trial to stop. She remembers her heart pounding in her chest and this was all wrong, this wasn’t how the trial was supposed to go at all, they were so close, so why…?

She feels Diego’s cautious hand on her arm and she presses her face into his shoulder, feeling the tears roll down her face. Is she allowed to cry now? Is it all over?  

Her shoulders start to shake as she thinks about what happened, and she hates Dahlia Hawthorne, and it’s such a potent feeling that it almost surprises her, just how strong her hatred is.

But she can’t think of anything other than the same tired laps her thoughts have been spinning in since that day, so she tries to stop thinking and just lets herself cry into Diego’s shoulder for a while as the same recycled laugh track plays in the background.

She has to keep going. She has to move past this. She knows that, but it’s still so hard to think about going back into the courtroom, standing at the defense bench again. She thinks about how excited she had been on her first day in the city, standing before the courthouse, so full of hopes and plans and no idea that any of this was going to happen.

Eventually, Mia takes a deep breath, and then another. Tomorrow, she’ll stop feeling sorry for herself. Tomorrow, she’ll buy flowers for Terry Fawles’ grave, and she’ll go back to the office and try to keep moving forward.  

But for today, she breathes in the scent of her too sweet coffee and feels Charley lean against her leg, feels Diego breathing next to her, and gives herself the time she needs to slowly start to stitch her life back together.

* * *

 

Her and Diego grow closer after that. He looks for Dahlia, and Mia looks for her mother, and they meet somewhere in the middle. He doesn’t call her kitten every time he opens his mouth and she doesn’t roll her eyes every time she looks at him. They find a balance in the chaos, but she doesn’t set foot in the courtroom again.

So she spends her days acting like a glorified secretary, and Diego figures out that she likes tea more than coffee, and Robert Hammond continues to use his sketchy, selfish tactics in court, and Mr. Grossberg continues to let him and mumble about the days of his youth and the scent of fresh lemons.

The weather gets warmer, the snow starts to slip away, and the stubborn freeze that had griped the city finally starts to thaw, cleansing the streets of old snow and grime. However, between the snow melting and the rain falling, no one seems to get a break from all this water.

Through it all, she keeps an eye on Hammond. He turned out to be worse than what she imagined, but she keeps her distance, especially after she determines that he truly doesn’t know more about the DL-6 investigation details than the case file said he did. It looks like he’s a dead end. Mia tries not to get discouraged, and resolves to keep looking. It’s all she’s ever done, dividing her time and searching for answers.

But, on one breezy, fateful day in May, Mia finally gets her break. After all these years of working, she finally finds something that helps her.

It happens completely by accident. For once, the snow was gone and the sky was clear, and the city was beginning to shake the deep, permeating soak it had endured. The windows in the office were open to let in the warm breeze, as well as all the pollen, and Mia was preparing to go and meet Diego for lunch.  

Charley stretches lazily by the open window, and his flower drinks in the sunlight. He squeaks happily when he catches her looking at him, waving at her with his vines, and she is overwhelmed with affection yet again, as she often is when she looks at him and thinks about how much they’ve gone through together.

So she stands in front of Mr. Grossberg’s door, about to leave a file on his desk and tell him she’s leaving for her lunch break, as she catches a voice through the door. Perhaps it’s something in the tone, or maybe it’s her intuition that fills her will dread, but she presses herself against the nearby wall and tries her best to listen.

She can’t hear much. Even with the stranger’s boisterous voice, he doesn’t make much sense. He has a rich, loud laugh, and it sends chills down her spine. She can’t tell much from his voice alone, so she doesn’t know what to expect as the door suddenly swings open and the stranger is standing in front of her.

She doesn’t know where to look, but eventually she settles on his eyes, a hard, icy blue. They watch her curiously, but they don’t lose their analytical gleam even as the man’s face contorts into an unnatural grimace. He’s wearing a gaudy pink suit, and his hair is dyed lavender.  

He seems to radiate power and control, and she doesn’t have to guess why she feels so intimidated by him. His attire is decorated with diamonds  that glitter in the light, and she tries to count them, the one pinned to his lapel, and his cufflinks, and on the thick rings on his fingers. She thinks that if he ever tried to punch someone in the face, it would definitely leave a bruise.

But all of this takes only a moment, and then the stranger is leering at her, with polished teeth, saying something with the word “splendiferous” and wait, is he talking about-?

She holds the files to her chest, covering herself in embarrassment, and the man laughs his awful, grating laugh once more, before saying something to Mr. Grossberg and walking away in long strides. She catches a Purugly trotting by his feet, and the fat cat glancing at Mia, unimpressed as she passes, swinging her curly purple tail high in the air.

Mia blinks in the wake of their guest, already winded just by mere proximity. She peers into Mr. Grossberg’s office, where the man seems uncomfortable, and quickly places the file down on his desk.

“Who was that, sir?” she wonders aloud, glancing behind her as he if may reappear any moment and catch her talking about him.

“Hmm, an acquaintance of mine,” Mr. Grossberg clears his throat, “His name is Redd White.”

Redd White. The name strikes a chord in her, but she doesn’t know why. She simply nods and tells her boss she’s leaving for her lunch break, suddenly in a hurry to leave the office. There’s something about the air in there she doesn’t like, something about the way Mr. Grossberg’s eyes follow her as she leaves, as if to tell her something she can’t quite discern right now.

She tries her best to ignore it, but her mind hinges on the name. Redd White. Something in her tells her that name is important, but she can’t figure it out yet. She’s especially quiet that day, and Diego studies her inquisitively on the park bench.  

Charley teases a Butterfree a few yards away, plucking flowers from the sides and swatting casually at the bug pokemon with a few vines when it protests over the destruction of it’s garden. Eventually, she sighs, brushing her bangs out of her eyes.

“Ever hear of man named Redd White?” she asks, as the Butterfree flaps it’s wings in indignation, creating a small gust of wind.

Diego stops to consider. “Can’t say I have,” he says, leaning back into the bench and watching the scene, “Why?”

“He stopped by the office today. There’s something about him that I just don’t like.”

Diego shrugs, “Well, be thankful that you’ll never see him again. Sometimes, you just have to accept when the coffee’s gone cold. That’s one of my rules.”

She lets out an amused breath at his attempts to ease her tension and tries her best to believe him. But she still can’t seem to shake this nagging, uneasy feeling, that this isn’t the last she’ll see of Redd White.

But she doesn’t say anything, quietly resolving to look more into it by herself. Diego already has his hands full with trying to track down Dahlia, so she doesn’t want to put more on his plate. Or, to go along with the theme of coffee metaphors, overflow his cup. See, Mia can be good at this too, when she wants to be.

So she simply calls Charley over, ending his feud with the Butterfree. He presents to her the spoils of his victory, two small daffodils, and she takes one, giving the other to Diego, who grumbles about it before tucking it into his the pocket of his waistcoat.

* * *

 

Her sister takes the train in to visit her again. They go for burgers and talk about city life, and when she leaves Mia holds her close in a hug, just like she always done at the end of their visits, and Charley butts against her leg affectionately.  

The city starts to dry off, slowly. She spends more time with Diego, walking around the park on sweltering summer nights, talking about everything and nothing.  

He’s been better at listening, and she’s been better at opening up. So she tells him a little about her life in Kurain under the lamplight in the park as the temperature hovers in a constant humid height. They walk through the constellation of streetlights and sidewalks, talking about ghosts and siblings and family. She starts to feel better than she has in a while, more relaxed, just her and Diego in the park after midnight.

He presses a quick, innocent kiss onto her cheek when they part, gently taking her hand, and she spends the rest of the night with a soft warm glow in her chest as Charley snores next to her.

Maybe something could happen between her and Diego. It’s not something she ever would have expected, but the steady companionship he offers is something she’s learned to trust. And he isn’t overbearing, or loud, or brash, when he looks at her. It’s like the lights dim around them, when she looks at the warmth in his eyes.

Maybe something could happen here. Maybe one day she could lean forward, and feel his stubble against her face, feel him smile that awful smirk once more. No matter what happens between them, she’s certain that Diego is something in her life that she knows she can keep. It fills her with a certain freshness, a breathless feeling, when she thinks about the two of them together.

It’s what she’s thinking about as she hears him typing away a file report in the office, months later. The summer has winded down to a warm gust of wind, nights full of crickets and cicadas and smoky skies. The day had reached the pleasant warmth of late August, and she thinks that this must be how Charley feels when he stretches out in the sun, bright and content.

The office is filled with the sound of clicking and the rustling of papers, and she marvels at how they manage to work together now compared to when she first started working here. It’s hard to believe a whole year has passed, and still her life moves forward.

She glances up when Diego stands and starts stacking papers to put in his briefcase.

“Going somewhere?”

He sighs, “Out to the courthouse to meet up with someone. I don’t know how long it will take, so don’t wait up.”

She hums, redirecting her attention back to her work, “Do you want me to come with you?” she asks, flipping open a folder.

She hears Diego’s voice closer to her desk. “No, it’s okay. I know you don’t like it there, kitten.” He puts a hand on her shoulder, casually. She looks up at him, smiling at the contact.

“Alright,” she says, looking into his warm brown eyes, “good luck.”

He smiles at that. “Thanks. I’ll call you later and tell you how it all went.”

She lets her hand drift of to cover his, and holds it there for a few moments. A part of her wants to kiss him, but apart of her wants to wait. So she holds this contact, this moment between them. They’ll have other moments in the future, she tells herself, she’ll have other chances.

“Okay,” she says lightly, “See you.”

* * *

 

She never does get that phone call. She falls asleep waiting for it, and when she wakes up, Diego is gone.

If only there was a way to know when your last moment with someone would be. If she had known that the last time she would see Diego would be on that lazy August afternoon, there’s so many things she would have said.  

There should have been some kind of warning, some sort of intuition. Maybe the spiritual side of her could have kicked in, telling her not to let him go, don’t step out that door.

But she doesn’t know, and he steps outside that door, and she never sees him again.

She tells herself not to be so dramatic, as the hospital machines click and beep beside her. There are so many machines here, and she doesn’t know what any of them are for. Diego lays in front of her, unnaturally still, skin pale and translucent and deathly. His face his thin and still. Even his eyes don’t move. If not for the machines and doctors, she would think he was dead.

He almost is, really. The doctors say words like brain activity and coma and the names of machines that she’s too tired remember. They talk about damage to the central nervous system, and making it through the night.

There are tubes and wires and screens, and they are constantly bright and beeping. The noise follows her home, locked inside her head, grating against her skull.

The Diego in front of her is pale and ashen. His hand is limp in hers. She thinks that if she holds it tight enough, she could convey some of her warmth to him, and he would wake up. He doesn’t, but she holds his hand anyway.

He’s lucky, the doctors tell her, with their white coats and red lips, he’s lucky to be alive.

She looks at him now, and he doesn’t look lucky at all. He just looks dead.

He’s drained of all colors. He blends in with the walls and floors and sheets, even his hair is white now. He looks like he’s fading as he lays there. His face doesn’t change. Nothing changes.  

She doesn’t think about the Diego she knew. She doesn’t think about his tan skin and red shirts and how his dark brown eyes caught the light. She doesn’t think about him laughing or smiling or calling her kitten. She doesn’t think at all. She just looks at his hand in hers, so different from how she had last held it.

His Armaldo had howled and sobbed when Diego’s family came to take him away. She hasn’t seen them since.

She can’t drink coffee anymore. She can’t even smell it without wanting to throw up. She can’t go to coffee shops, or to their lunch place, or walk through the park by herself. She can’t look at the courthouse without feeling a toxic mix of anger and dread and hate.

Dahlia Hawthorne, that devil. Mia is going to make her pay, as soon as she can find the energy to get out of bed in the morning.

She works in the corner of the office, alone, uninterrupted. She doesn’t hear any life rules or coffee metaphors. The coffee machine is untouched in the corner. Grossberg moves to put it away, but she won’t let him touch it. It would be wrong, she thinks, to move Diego’s coffee machine. It was his. It’s not right to touch his stuff.

So she mindlessly files paperwork in the quiet office and looks at his array of mugs. His coffee machine gathers dust. The nights get cooler. Diego doesn’t wake up.

She walks to work alone. In the office, no one talks to her. Grossberg sends her pitying glances, like he thinks she can’t tell, and she wants to grab him by the lapels and shake him and tell him _no, no, no, this is all wrong. Diego isn’t dead yet. He’s going to wake up, so don’t look at me like that._

She keeps Charley in his ball when she visits the hospital. At home, he can tell something is wrong, so he cuddles extra close to her, lays his head on her shoulder, and looks at her with his big red eyes. He’s the only thing that can coax a small smile out of her. But she doesn’t tell him what happened. She doesn’t think she could put it into words. He seems to notice that Diego is gone, even without her saying it.

She doesn’t call her sister. She doesn’t invite her out, and in turn, she doesn’t receive any phone calls, either. Without Diego, it’s like she’s cut off from the world.  

The leaves change colors, but she can’t tell the difference. The only thing that doesn’t change colors is Diego. She thinks she would give anything just to see him smile again, just to hear some stupid cliche disguised as a life rule, some basic comparison to coffee.

She gets used to going through life alone. She gets used to having no one to tell about her day. She writes down a list of things to tell him, and she talks to him on the hospital bed. She tells him about all the little things happening in the city. Their lunch place repainted its walls. There’s a new coffee shop a few blocks away, and she wishes he were here so she could buy him coffee there and watch as it’s not up to his standards, but he drinks it anyway, because she bought it for him.  

She calls his cell phone just to listen to his answer machine. She doesn’t leave any messages.

_Hey, it’s Diego. Leave a message and I’ll call you back._

She wishes it was longer. _Hey, it’s Diego._  

She calls again and again, listening to his voice, tears rolling down her cheeks. One day, all that greets her is the dial tone, and a robotic voice telling her _this number is no longer in service._

She talks to her sister again, but she doesn’t remember what she says. When her sister sees her next, she gives her a long hug, wrapping her arms around her. Mia feels her small frame pressed into her and wants to tell Maya that it’s okay, it’s always been okay. She’s fine.  

A lawyer can’t cry till it’s all over, right? And Diego isn’t dead yet, so it’s not over, and she’s not allowed to cry about it.

Charley doesn’t leave her side. She runs her hands along his brittle leaves and thinks about how her life is now. She wonders where she can go from here. She had everything she wanted, right? How does life move forward when Diego is gone?

The winter comes. She can hardly tell. She doesn’t feel a thing. Her entire life is frozen. The snow piles tall and white. The buildings are gray, the sky is gray. Diego’s skin is gray. His hospital gown is white. His hair is white.

It’s as if everything has been leached of color, the moment he closed his eyes.  

* * *

 

She doesn’t feel life moving forward, but it does. She doesn’t feel herself getting better, but she does. It happens slowly, like she’s waking up from a long sleep. She calls her sister and listens to Maya talk about her day. She accompanies Hammond to crime scenes and organizes the court record as he interviews witnesses. She follows him through the detention center’s long hallways. She doesn’t set foot in the courtroom, but she helps him investigate.

She keeps her eyes open, but it’s like Dahlia Hawthorne has disappeared into the air. She poisoned Diego and slipped away, and no one caught her. For the second time, Dahlia walks out of the courthouse with blood on her hands.

It’s not that Mia doesn’t care. It’s just that no one can find Dahlia Hawthorne. But the next time she resurfaces, Mia is going to be there to meet her, and she isn’t going to let her get away from her again.

The anniversary of the Terry Fawles case washes over her as the the rain pours down outside. She slowly starts to research Redd White again, carefully compiling any information she can get. There isn’t much, and she has to go deeper and deeper each time. She wonders if she hit a dead end.

Maybe there’s nothing important about Redd White. Maybe he’s just a corrupt business man that covers his tracks well, but has no connection to DL-6. Or maybe he’s just a regular business man with a horrible aura, money to burn, and a terrible fashion sense.

She tries not to feel like she’s wasting her time, so she focuses on learning how to breathe again. She picks her life back up. She remembers to eat. She goes on walks with Charley. She takes care of herself, and she does everything alone.  

She has no late night phone calls. No one brings her tea, so she has to do it herself. It isn’t enough. It’s not what she wants. But she manages.

She takes his coffee mugs out of the cabinet at the office. She unplugs his coffee machine. She takes it to her apartment and tucks it away. She puts his mugs in her cabinet. She tries not to feel empty. She has tea in one of his mugs, and pretends that it’s enough. She pretends that it’s a connection to him. But she knows that it doesn’t make a difference. It never does.  

The winter is shorter than usually. Maybe it’s sensed that Mia is done with the cold, and wants to remember how to feel warm again. It takes her a long time to realize that in a few months, Diego will have been in a coma for a year. A whole year. She’ll have spent a year without him.

How did so much time pass? How is it spring already? How has Diego been out of her life for so long? It doesn’t feel real. She misses him desperately, and wishes he were here with her.  

But he doesn’t change. He doesn’t get worse, but he doesn’t get better. He is still and pale and quiet, and it is spring again, somehow. Even without him there to see it. It feels wrong.

What was she doing last spring? It seems like yesterday, but also a lifetime ago. How did so much time pass without her noticing? How much more time is she going to have to endure before he wakes up and looks at her again?

Sometimes she wishes that he would just go. She’s tired of looking at a ghost. She’s tired of looking at an old photo. If he were dead, then she could mourn him properly instead of nursing the hope that maybe he’ll wake up, and this long nightmare will finally be over.  

And she’ll say that she missed him, and she loves him, and he’ll call her kitten and say something stupid about coffee, but she won’t care as long as he’s with her.

But that doesn’t happen. But he doesn’t pass from this life, either. The faint rise and fall of his chest doesn’t still. The machines don’t burst into a frantic staccato of beeping, the doctors don’t rush in and tell her he’s gone. There is no quiet, no hush. She feels like she’s holding her breathe, but never able to exhale.

She would be okay if he died, knowing that he’s waiting for her in the next life, and they would meet again. It would be better than this in between, this torturous not-knowing that keeps her up in bed at night. Anything would be better than this stalemate.

It’s spring again. The world outside is changing and growing, sprouting and spreading roots. New plants are budding and stretching, newly hatched Fletchlings test their wings, and the Bellsprouts settle happily into the ground. Gardens are bursting with life and color. The wind is full of pollen and Jumpluff, and the people in the streets are constantly going somewhere, a steady stream of movement.  

The world inside the hospital room is grayscale and quiet and still. Diego doesn’t move from the bed. He hardly breathes. He doesn’t hear her talk to him. He doesn’t hear anything.  

The air in here is stuffy and old. There is no sound, no movement, no color.  

It’s spring again, and Diego is cold and quiet and still.

* * *

 

Phoenix Wright isn’t like anyone she’s ever met. She isn’t yet sure if that’s a good thing or not. He’s certainly a sight to behold, in any case, as he sneezes powerfully four times in a row, and then apologizes profusely. He loudly blows his nose and the Murkrow on his shoulder flaps it’s small black wings to regain it’s balance after at all of Mr. Wright’s erratic movements.

The small bird nestles himself against the crook of Mr. Wright’s neck, peering at Mia with guarded red eyes, following her movements protectively. Her client reaches up to stroke the bird’s pointed head feathers, and the Murkrow coos in response, leaning into the touch.

Mr. Wright catches her staring, “Most people expect me to have something in the Flechinder family,” he says brightly, smiling widely under his surgical mask, “You know, because I’m named after a fire bird and all that.”

Mia tries to smile at the attempt to lighten the atmosphere. Just standing in the defendant lobby is enough to set all of her nerves on end, and she wishes she were either behind the defense bench or back in bed, just so she wouldn’t have to be stuck waiting here.

She hates this jittery feeling, this nervous energy churning inside her, and she can’t believe she’s back in the courthouse again, over a year since she last stood here. The pit of dread in her stomach is constantly turning, and she steels herself against it

The reason for her return coughs into his elbow. He’s wearing an oversized pink sweater and a red scarf, and he’s always moving and smiling and talking. She tries not to let it bother her. She to stay calm and compose herself, even as he distracts her, again.

Mr. Grossberg is saying something to her client. Mia should probably pay attention, but she’s thinking about the last time she stood here, with Diego, with Mr. Fawles. Everything is different now. She’s suddenly reminded at the utter lack of experience she has.

But there’s no turning back now. She takes a deep breath and tells Mr. Wright that it will be fine, smothering the anxious flutter inside her chest.

But when she stands behind the defense bench, and meets Dahlia Hawthorne’s saccharine sweet brown eyes, all of her doubts fade into static, as Mia thinks about what she did.  

Dahlia’s Vivillon perches delicately on her trainer’s small white shoulder, calmly beating it’s round pink wings as Dahlia manipulates the court. Dahlia smiles daintily, and the Judge is completely fooled by her act. Vivillon looks at Mia with it’s glittering eyes, as Dahlia tells her she has no proof and can’t keep her on the stand.

And Mia gets to watch as her peaceful gaze sours, as her hands grip her parasol, as Dahlia gnashes her teeth and glares, her girlish facade shattered into apathy and vengeance.

“Mia Fey,” Dahlia grounds out through clenched teeth, low and guttural and dangerous. She bites out each word with slow, sharp precision, “Do you think you’ve won?”

Does she? What does she have now, just the adrenaline rush and an idiotic client? But she has won. Even if it feels like a pyrrhic victory without Diego by her side, like he should be. Still, she lets herself have it, as Dahlia twirls her parasol and smiles at them from the witness stand, her true nature hidden away again.

Mia thinks about Diego laying comatose in that washed out hospital room. She thinks about Terry Fawles shuddering and wheezing when he ingests the poison. She thinks about Valerie Hawthorne, shoved into a trunk with a knife in her back, bleeding out by the hands of her little sister. She thinks about Doug Swallow’s body convulsing under electric shock.

“I wish you all the best,” Dahlia says with a serene smile as the handcuffs close around her small, thin wrists.

* * *

 

A few months later, the CEO of a major phone company commits suicide over the weekend. Mia watches the report on the news as Charley lays his head on her lap.  

The next day, Mia picks up the information she’s gathered on Redd White, remembering how she had given up on finding anything with him. But maybe there was still more to be discovered? He’s a powerful businessman. He probably deals in blackmail and secrets.

It’s no coincidence he was in Mr. Grossberg’s office that afternoon, years ago. He must have been there for a reason. Mia will find out why.

Maybe this is connected to DL-6. Maybe this has something to do with Hammond, who works with Grossberg, and that’s why Redd White stopped by. She’s chilled when she remembers that someone did sell information on the Kurain Channeling technique to the press, all those years ago.

Someone knew about the police consulting a medium. Someone connected to the case. And if that attorney mentioned it to their boss, and that boss had a debt to a powerful business man, maybe he’d try to pay that debt back by sharing classified information.

She feels cold. Her hand stills from where she is scratching behind Charley’s ear. She feels static in her ears, drowning out the noise from the television.  

On that fateful day, the media exploded with news of desperate police, fraudulent spirit channeling, the shamed leader of a shady occult village in the mountains. Yanni Yogi was found innocent. The spirit lied, or more likely, the Master of the Kurain Channeling technique was a fake.

Her mother’s life had been destroyed. Her reputation was torn apart, the village cried for her resignation, the news channels had swarmed the area with cameras and microphones, interviewing anyone who set foot outside their door.

The master of the Kurain had stood noble and stoic among the pressure, among the village’s desecration, among the destruction of everything her and her ancestors had fought to build. She watched as their legacy was trampled, as her sister watched with cool, calculating eyes.

And Misty Fey took off her traditional, ceremonial robes.  

Aunt Morgan had woken Mia roughly, on a night without a moon. Mia remembers stumbling and rubbing her eyes, unused to being awake at this time. She sees her mother in the dim candle light, face drawn and tired, but also fiercely strong, impossibly strong under this terrible burden.

“Mia,” her mother had said, “this is very important,” and Mia remembers the yellow light of the candles, the shadows in the room, her mother’s dark clothing, but she doesn’t remember how her mother’s face had looked when they saw each other for the last time.

Mia had stared into her mother’s eyes, serious and steady. At the moment, she doesn’t understand what’s happening. She doesn’t know it, but she will revisit this night for years, trying to remember as many details as possible.

Misty had pulled her eldest daughter into a hug. Had she known then, that she would be changing Mia’s life forever? Did she know the path her daughter would be forced to take, because of this night?

“Mia,” her mother said again, voice rough and firm, “I love you very much. I’ll think about you every day, and no matter where I am, you’ll always be in my heart.”

Mia doesn’t understand, but something in her mother’s voice makes her still. “Is this about the reporters?” she whispers, tucking her face into the crook of her mother’s neck as her mother pulls her in close.

Mia won’t remember what she smells like, or what her mother’s embrace feels like, when she tries to remember this moment. Mia won’t remember the desperation in her mother’s eyes, the longing, the sorrow. She’ll just remembers the way the room looked, dim and yellow in the dead of night, stained into her mind’s eye.

“This is not your fault,” her mother whispered in a raspy voice, dragging herself from the hug.

“Look at me,” Misty had said, when Mia stares at the floor and tries to understand what’s happening.

“I’ll miss you so much,” Misty had said, “I know you’ll be okay. I am so, so proud of you. I will always be proud of you. Do you understand?”

Mia watches her mother’s desperation, suddenly afraid. Why is she here, in the middle of the night? What’s going on? Why is her mother telling her this?

“Mom?” her voice is small and afraid when her mother stands and turns away from her, covering her face with her hand. Mia felt the firm grip of her aunt’s hand on her shoulder, rooting her in place. Aunt Morgan had given Misty her other daughter, who was warm and small and asleep in her arms.

Misty talks to Maya in a slow, quiet voice, stroking her round face with a trembling hand. Mia watches her mother cradle Maya close to her, breathing in a deep breath and closing her eyes as she presses a kiss onto Maya’s forehead. Misty presses her lips together and blinks rapidly, holding Maya against her heartbeat. She takes another controlled breath.

Mia watches her mother. She’s never seen her like this. She understands that her mother is leaving, but all she can do is watch as Misty rocks Maya in her arms and hums a low tune, even though Maya is already asleep, and much too young to remember this moment.

“Misty.” Mia hears Aunt Morgan’s firm voice above her, shattering the hush in the room as her fingers dig into Mia’s shoulder.

“I know,” he mother says softly, taking one last look at Maya before handing her back. “Thank you, Morgan,” she had said, thickly, but holding back her emotions. She had smiled at Mia though her eyes were wet with tears, and then Aunt Morgan had pulled Mia from the room with her vice-like grip. Mia looks back as the door slides shut, but can’t find her mother’s face in the darkness.

That was thirteen years ago. How could so much times have passed? Mia feels like her life is just a constant loop of that question, a dizzying rush at the reminder of how much time she’s lost.

And now, she’s found the person who ruined her mother’s life, who leaked the information to the press, forcing her to go into hiding and leave her two young children behind. She’s found the man who told the press, but more importantly, she’s found the man who allowed it all to happen.

She’s known him for a while, actually. She’s been working for him for two years.  

He had stood beside her during Mr. Wright’s trial. He had been kind to her, and guided her, and she had trusted him. But all he is is a coward and a liar, and he’s been keeping this from her for all these years.

Is that why he hired her? Out of misplaced pity and guilt for what he told Redd White, all those years ago? Out of a pathetic attempt to make himself feel better for his past cowardice?

All this time, the person she was looking for was in front of her: Marvin Grossberg. The missing link to the puzzle.

But he isn’t her target. He may be pathetic and a coward, and she would love to let him know exactly what he did to her, but she feels nothing for him now, not respect or loyalty, or even hatred. There’s nothing that would fix what he’s done. And even with that anger and betrayal, she doesn’t feel any desire to take it out on him.

No. She only has one target. She knows exactly who he is, and she won’t let him get away from her. She’s going to compile evidence, and she’s going to find Redd White when he can’t slip away.  

She’ll find undeniable proof and she’ll corner him with it, and finally give him hell for his years of gluttony and greed, for the power hungry gleam in his eyes, for his careless god complex. She’s locked in on him, and she isn’t going to let him go.

* * *

 

“What’s this, my dear?”

“My resignation. I quit.” Her voice is sharp, clipped, professional. She stares at him.

“Whatever for, Mia?” Mr. Grossberg blinks at her, reading the change in atmosphere. Hammond looks up from his desk with interest.

“Your practice no longer offers what I’m looking for. I’m going to start my own firm.” She looks at him until he breaks the eye contact himself, glancing over a Hammond for a second. He shifts uncomfortably.

“I’ve wrapped up everything with Mr. Wright’s trial,” she tells him, “all the documents are taken care of. I apologize for the short notice.” No, she doesn’t. She just decided that she didn’t care enough to give a two weeks notice.  

A few years ago, she would be appalled at her own unprofessional actions. As she is now, she simply stares at him coldly. She’s tired of all this. There’s nothing that this firm has to offer her anymore, now that Diego is gone, and Mr. Grossberg isn’t who she thought he was. As for Hammond, she always knew what kind of person he was.  
  
“Mia, this is so unlike you,” Mr. Grossberg manages, after a moment. “Did something happen?”

She takes a deep breathe, and tries to dispel the anger burning in her lungs. “I’m sorry sir,” she says, trying to think of a way to phrase what she discovered. “My life was directly affected by DL-6 and a man called Redd White. I found out that you sold information to him once, thirteen years ago.”  

That’s the vaguest way she can think of to articulate it. There’s so much more to it than that, so much more than she can say.

Grossberg blanches at the name, his beady eyes shifting over to look at the floor. She can see beads of sweat on his greasy forehead, as he noisily clears his throat. “Hmm, yes,” Grossberg mutters, “I do seem to remember something like that.”

She glares at him, “So you admit it then? You sold information to Redd White about police use of the Kurain Channeling technique during DL-6?”

Grossberg squints at her, “That’s quite an assumption to make,” he says carefully, “Where is all this coming from?”

She considers. Why is she so sure about this? Mr. Grossberg could have given information to Redd White at any point in his life. Why is she so certain that it’s related to her mother’s disappearance?

“Please don’t lie to me,” she says quietly, instead of answering, watching the way Mr. Grossberg’s eyes travel the room and refuse to look directly at her.

Eventually, Mr. Grossberg lets out a long, weary sigh.

“It’s true,” he says, “And I do regret it, even now. But at the time, I was in need of cash, and Redd White offered me the money I needed to pay my debts, in exchange for information. I didn’t think about the damage I would cause, or the lives I would affect at the time. That’s the kind of person I am, I suppose…”

She clamps down on the surge of emotion she feels. He helped cause all this, because of his own weak, selfish tendencies. He’ll bow in the direction of anyone who applies even the slightest bit of pressure. She’s still a novice attorney, and even she managed to make him bend after a few minutes of pressing. He has no backbone, no pride, no dignity. She has nothing to say to him.

“Thank you for your time,” She grinds out, sparing Hammond a harsh glance as she leaves.  

She walks down the city sidewalk, leaving Grossberg & co. Law Office for the last time. A chapter of her life is over, but she doesn’t really feel it, as her heels strike the pavement in a steady rhythm, a clear, cutting finality hanging in the space she left.

* * *

 

The line is quiet, but Mia can hear her sister breathing, so she knows that she’s still there.  

“Wow,” Maya says, after a while. She seems to search for words, and come back empty. “Wow,” she says again, dumbfounded.

“I know,” Mia sighs, running her hand over her face. “But Fey & co. Law Office is officially open, in case you need a good attorney.”

“But sis,” Maya says, “You’re pretty much a rookie yourself still, right?”

The phone is warm against her cheek as she lets out a laugh “That’s right, unfortunately. Here’s hoping I’ll get a case soon.”

“I mean, congratulations and all,” Maya says quickly, “That’s still a pretty big deal.”

“Thanks Maya,” she says good-naturedly, “it’s good to talk to you.”

She can hear her sister’s voice brighten on the other end. “Yeah,” Maya agrees, happily, “It’s been forever since we last spoke! I’ll have to come down for burgers sometime.”

“Yes, you do,” Mia says, mentally checking her calendar, “I’ll call you when I find a day, okay?”

“Okay. I can hear Aunt Morgan looking for me. Oh, and you should see Pearly, she’s the cutest little kid I’ve ever seen. You have to come up and meet her sometime.”

“Maybe,” she says, holding the phone with her shoulder as she steps over Charley, curled up on the floor in a nap, “I’ll let you go.”

Maya’s voice is farther away as she takes the phone away from her mouth,“Coming!” Mia hears her call to Aunt Morgan. Her voice gets closer as she brings the phone back, “Bye sis, talk to you soon!”

Mia opens her mouth to say goodbye, but the line goes dead before Mia can respond. She smiles, warmed by the sound of her sister’s voice.  

She thinks of all the things she has to do. She has to find time to go to her office and tidy up a little more, make it look presentable to hopeful clients, and she has to find time to visit Diego and tell him about these new developments.

But for now, she sets water to boil for tea, even as the temperature outside climbs to an unbearable height. There are some habits she can’t shake, she thinks, looking at the array of potted plants by the windows that Charley so meticulously helps her take care of.

Maya’s life is so different from hers. She’s with her family, and she’s not alone. She’s busy with her training and with Pearl and her Haunter. Her sister has so much going for her, such a simple, peaceful life in the mountains.

Mia tries not to feel jealous when she thinks about her own directionless life in comparison. She thinks about herself, alone in the city, struggling under the weight of managing her own law firm by herself, when all Maya has to worry about is training and helping a four year old learn simple sentences.

She stands alone in her quiet kitchen. She pours the water into a white ceramic mugs, watching the tea bag sink in the boiling water.

She misses Diego. She misses his company and the sound of his voice. This would all make more sense if he was just here with her, assuring her that she made the right choice, and he would be there to support her through this transition.

She misses the smell of his coffee and all his stupid life rules. She can’t stop the tears that spill down her cheek, how her breath hitches when she think about how he’s gone. How much more of her life is she going to have to spend without him?

She wants the life she was supposed to have. She can’t believe that in just a month, he’ll have been asleep a whole year. How could that happen? It was practically yesterday that he was here with her, walking through the park at night, bringing her tea in the morning, smiling at her with that awful lopsided smirk. She thinks about all the things he’s missing, all the things he never got to see happen.

She lets herself fall to the floor, crying loud, heartbroken sobs. This isn’t fair. She just wants to see him again.  

Why wasn’t she allowed to have him? What’s going to happen to her?

She feels her shoulders shake, feels her breath rattle in her chest. There’s nothing that could make this better. There’s nothing that makes this feeling go away. The loneliness consumed her, the sadness she’s been pushing away finds her again, and she wishes that Maya was here with her instead of so far away in a world of her own.

But even if Maya was here, there’s no way that Mia could ever let her sister see her like this. She’s only ever been strong and composed for Maya. So there’s no one she could tell, no one she could show this side of herself to.

And now she’s sitting on her kitchen floor, thinking about tomorrow and how utterly unprepared she is to face it by herself.  

She was going to do better. It’s the height summer again, and she’s had time to heal and move on. She’s had things to distract herself with. She went back to court, she was doing so well. It shouldn’t still hurt the same way it did when it happened. It should be over by now. Dahlia was arrested, so when is Diego going to wake up? Isn’t it over?

Charley comes to find her, woken by the sound of her heartbreak, and she clings to him, holding him like a lifeline as the sorrow shakes through her. Charley lets out low, distressed noises, but she can’t seem to stop crying.

“I miss him, Charley,” she chokes out, “I wish he was here.”

She’s overwhelmed by this feeling of helplessness, cast out into the middle of the ocean with hardly a lifejacket. What is she going to do? She barely has any experience in court. She hardly has a reputation to fall back on. She’s never even stood in court by herself. And now she’s starting a law firm, all by herself? What was she thinking? She’s not ready for this.

But it’s too late to turn back now. It’s a thought that terrifies her, that she’ll have to keep moving despite not knowing what she’s doing. She wishes she could go back to the days where all she had to worry about was filing papers and going to lunch with Diego.

She wishes for anyone at all. She wishes for her mother, for Lana’s quiet support, for Diego’s warmth, she even wishes for Aunt Morgan’s condescending commands to get off the floor and get back to work.

But all she has is Charley, who tries to make himself as comfortable as possible in her arms as he tries his best to comfort her.  

“What am I going to do, Charley?” Her voice trembles, “How am I going to do this by myself?”

If Charley has any answers, he doesn’t share them, he simply makes low, soothing noises as she holds him and her tea over seeps on the counter above her.

* * *

 

Her first thought is that he looks much more put together than the last time she had seen him. He looks more serious, more mature, more ready, and he finally got rid of that horrific pink sweater.

Phoenix looks at her earnestly. The bird on his shoulder preens casually.

“You want to work here?” She repeats, watching the way Phoenix’s Murkrow cleans its feathers.

Phoenix nods. “Yeah,” he says, “I still have some time left before I take the bar, but I could help you out with paperwork or whatever you need.”

She’s really in no position to say no. It’s not like she couldn’t use the help. But the problem is that she hardly has any cases for herself, much less work for Phoenix. She wonders how she’ll find things for him to do everyday, when she’s the only lawyer here, and business is painfully slow.

“I promise I’ve grown up since you last saw me, Ms. Fey!” Phoenix says eagerly, in a way that’s reminiscent of the last time she had seen him, “Please give me a chance!”

Maybe Phoenix hasn’t grown up as much as he says he has. But she appreciated his dedication to law, and maybe he does have some promise, with all that passion he has.

“Well, tell me about yourself,” she says, “How have you been since we’ve last spoken?”

“Well, I started doing Law full time, and I’m set to be an attorney by the spring, if all goes well. It’s my only focus, and I’d really like to work with you.”

She holds up a hand to cut him off. She likes Phoenix, and they could get along, especially if he learns to compose himself a little better. But he’s still miles better than how she last saw him. It’s hard to believe it was just this April that she had taken his case. With his new mindset, it’s like he’s a different person.

So she smiles and shakes his hand, “I’d be glad to have you, Phoenix.”

Phoenix smiles widely, “Thanks Chief,” he says, and the small Murkrow on his shoulder trills in support.

She blinks. _Chief_ …?

Charley wanders in, yawning at the noise. He pauses to rub against her leg in greeting, regarding the new addition with cool eyes.

Phoenix looks down, interested, “An Ivysaur,” he notes, “that’s the mascot of my school, Ivy University.”

Charley looks up at him, unimpressed.

“His name is Charley,” Mia supplies.

Phoenix bends down to pet Charley's head. “Hi Charley,” he says, “It’s nice to meet you.”

After a moment, Charley offers a vine, and Phoenix takes it, seriously, and they shake on it. Charley was most likely emulating what he saw Mia doing, but Phoenix doesn’t need to know that.

Phoenix looks impressed. “Wow,” he says, “how official.”

She smiles at that, leading him deeper into the office, and begins telling him about the meager filing system she’s started, and what time the office opens in the morning.

* * *

 

It’s good to have company. The leaves are dyed orange again and Mia finally lands a case, a civil suit, which she brings to court herself and manages to win, on the second day. Phoenix watches from the gallery and she allows herself the enjoy her victory, the first one she manages to get completely on her own.

Despite it’s shady appearance, Phoenix’s Murkrow is just as animated and quirky as he is. His Murkrow pecks at Phoenix when he says something dumb, and the pokemon is often seen grooming Phoenix’s hair with it’s beak, affectionately. They make a strange duo, but look after each other.  

They do look similar, she supposes, with the same spiky black head. And Charley doesn’t seem to mind the addition, swatting lazily when the bird hops over to inspect the bulb on it’s back.

“Charley sure does sleep a lot, huh Chief?” Phoenix says one day as his law textbook lays unopened in front of him.

“Maybe he’s storing up for something,” she says, not looking up from her files. She taps her pen against the desk to refocus his attention, “Tell me the evidence laws.”

He sighs, and starts to recite them.

Phoenix is right, though. Charley has been sleeping a lot more than usual. She notices how the bulb on his back has darkened at the tip, turning from a pale pink to a more rusty looking red. It takes him more and more effort to heave himself off the floor, and he walks slowly, carefully, yawning often. She wonders if he’s sick, as she notices the slight discoloration of his skin, the way his bulb seems to be bigger, heavier all of a sudden. Should she take him to the Pokemon center?

She watches a news report about an illegally owned Hydreigon mauling its trainer, shuddering as the news anchor describes the species' aggressive tendencies and shows a number to call to report illegal pokemon possession.  

She turns the news off, trying to forget how disturbed she feels for the rest of the day.

Having her own law firm means she’s busy more often than not, but she still finds time to visit Diego at least twice a week. It’s still hard to see him like this. It’s hard to look at his form on the bed and know that he’s still in there somewhere, even if it doesn’t look like it.

If Diego woke up tomorrow, he’d have missed a whole year of his life. He wouldn’t know about Dahlia being arrested, about her leaving Grossberg’s firm to start her own, or about how Grossberg was connected to Redd White, and how he’s the man who leaked information to the press.  

And if he did wake up tomorrow, would it still really be him? Maybe the Diego she knows is gone, and has been gone a long time, and this person laying in front of her is someone new entirely.

But it’s not like she’ll ever really know, because Diego doesn’t wake up tomorrow, or the day after. He doesn’t wake up at all.

So she goes back to work every morning and she takes a few straightforward cases. Phoenix accompanies her on the bench a few times, organizing the court record and handing her the things she needs. He buys a suit for the occasion, a blue, unused thing. It’s new and bright and stark, and it definitely makes a statement. It makes him look like a lawyer, if not for the missing gold badge.

As the temperature plummets, she continues to dig through archives for anything she can find on Redd White. Her list of names grow, and her list of evidence grows as well. It’s a lot, but not enough to make a statement. It would be bothersome for this to be released to the press, she’s sure, but she still needs to find more. She needs something definitive, something that will stick.

Gradually, the file she has for him grows fatter and more substantial, and she’s more and more satisfied with what she has. She’s so close now, she can tell. She’s going to have him right where she wants him.

When the winter thaws, she helps Phoenix study for the Bar Exam, quizzing him on famous court cases and dates and policies and procedures. He’s tired and stressed and worried, but he still smiles brightly at her when she praises him, and says “Thanks, Chief.”

And when Phoenix passes the exam, she doesn’t have to force the smile on her face. His happiness is contagious as he shows her again and again, the shiny new badge pinned to his lapel. She doesn’t remember being as happy as he was when she got her badge, but she takes him out to lunch to celebrate, just like Diego did for her.

Phoenix doesn’t stop smiling all day, as if he can barely contain his happiness through smiling alone. She wonders when the next time she’ll be that full of joy will be. But she pushes those thoughts aside, and focuses on Phoenix, asking him how it went.  

She calls Maya and tells her all about Phoenix. “He’s an interesting character”, Mia says, smiling fondly, “I hope you get the chance to meet him some day.”

“He sounds fun,” Maya says, and Mia can hear Pearl say something in the background, “It’s been awhile since I’ve been to the city, but training has been really intense lately.”

“It’s fine, Maya,” Mia says to her apologetic tone, “Focus on your training. We’ll find the time later, in the fall or something.”

“I knew you’d get it,” Maya says, sounding distant and sad, “I miss you, though. It’s not really the same without you here.”

It’s been so long since Mia was in Kurain. It’s probably changed in so many ways that she never thought possible, as a kid. She thinks about her childhood, full of clear, cold mountain air. She thinks about that crisp summer morning where she had first met Charley, and how bright the snow was there, and what kind of person she was before she truly knew how ugly people could be.

“I’m only two hours away,” she reminds her sister, feeling like she’s actually so much farther than that.

“I know,” Maya says, “I think what I really want is for us to be kids together again. Except, we never really were kids at the same time, were we?” Maya laughs into the phone.

“Are you okay?” she asks, hearing the slight hitch in Maya’s voice.  

“Yeah,” Maya says, “I will be. I just miss you, and I miss mom. Isn’t that weird? I never even met her.”

“That’s not weird at all,” Mia murmurs, reassuringly.

Maya sighs. “It’s just, I see how Aunt Morgan acts around Pearly, and then how she acts around me, and it’s just so different, you know? Just another reminder that I’m not really her kid, and she’ll never really care for me more than she has to.”

“Maya…”

“Don’t worry about it, really. I’m just feeling a little lonely, I guess. I’ll get over it.”

“Aunt Morgan should have been there for us,” Mia says suddenly, fiercely, “It’s not right of her to treat us differently. We’re part of the family too. And it’s normal for you to want that sort of connection with her, okay?”

There’s a few moments of silence, before Maya sighs again. “I know,” she says, “you’re right. I know you’re right. It’s not wrong of me to want a mother figure. I just wish I had one.”

“Me too,” Mia says, watching the way the rain slides against the window.

“Well, I’ll let you go,” Maya says, “Say hi to Charley for me.”

“I will. And Maya? I know we keep putting off seeing each other again, but after this busy summer is over, we definitely will. Okay?”

“Okay, sis,” Maya says, and Mia can hear her smile in her voice, “It’s a promise.”

* * *

 

Phoenix’s first trial suits him perfectly, Mia thinks, as Frank Sawhit’s toupee slides down her apprentice’s face. It’s fast paced, full of turns and twists, and the defendant is a colorful, overly dramatic, love struck fool. Wright seems like a natural, if not a little too nervous.

Maybe she’s selling him a little short. She is proud of him, though, remembering how he had caught Sawhit in every turn, using the court record like she’s taught him.

She sees the intensity in his eyes, the rapid pace his mind works, and she knows that he was meant to be a lawyer. He’s got the drive, the motivation, the fierce loyalty to his client. She’s proud to work alongside him. She can’t wait to see where this road will take him.

It’s not something she would have thought, the first time she met him. But she see’s how much he’s grown, and she’s glad to have him on the same side of the bench as her.

So they go to dinner to celebrate, and Mia manages to enjoy herself, watching Phoenix’s Murkrow steals fries when Phoenix looks away. She stays in the moment, watching Murkrow squawk when Phoenix scoops him up and scolds him, not noticing as Charley slides a vine over to carefully take a fry from the plate among the commotion. She winks at Charley when their eyes meet.

But Phoenix doesn’t stop smiling, and just by looking at him, Mia feels lighter, like the sheer proximity is enough to let her forget her burdens. So she lets herself relax, and Phoenix tells her about finding a baby Murkrow in his backyard as a child, fallen from the nest, small and weak and sickly. He tells her about nursing him back to health, and how the Murkrow refused to leave his side afterwards.

As he talks, the pokemon puffs up his chest feathers with pride, as if too show off the results of his recovery. She’s reminded of the image of Phoenix, puffing out his chest in court when Sawhit slips up and Phoenix hones in on him. They make quite a pair.

“His ability is called Super Luck,” Phoenix tells her, smoothing Murkrow’s feathers, “Maybe it’ll help me out in court one day.”

But the night is warm and pleasant, and the vinyl booth sticks to her thighs as they reminisce over Winston Payne losing his hair in court over the force of Mia yelling at him, and how he’s clinging to his rookie killer title despite it all.

At the end, Mia walks back to the office, a Thinker statue held loosely in one hand, and Charley’s vine in the other. She’s tired and content as the sun sets somewhere behind her, casting long shadows on buildings and signs.

She passes through the dying light, the fading warmth still managing to reach her even as the sky burns orange in the memory of the day.

* * *

 

Through the end of August, Phoenix greets her at the office like he always does, coffee in one hand and a sleepy Murkrow in the other. He starts working through papers diligently as she shuffles through files of her own. Today marks the second year that Diego has been asleep.

She tries not to focus on it too much. Maybe Phoenix reads the atmosphere, or maybe he’s just content to shift through files quietly by himself. Either way, Mia can’t help but think about the way her life is now. She’s running her own law firm by herself, and she’s actually getting clients and winning trials. She feels a familiar swell of pride at the thought, the plaque on the door serving as a physical reminder of all her hard work and toil throughout the years.

She’s sure Diego would be proud of her for making it all this way. Still, she wishes to see him again.

Through it all, she organizes her information on Redd White, and her list of names grow longer every day. She sees them so often that she already knows the first few by heart. She’s close to something big, and she knows the potential she has in her hands. She can’t wait to ruin him.  

Now all she has to do is wait for the right moment to strike. It’s the spoils of years worth of efforts, just as exhaustive as getting her attorney’s badge had been. And now, finally, at the end of this long road, she’s going to show Redd White exactly what happens when he messes with her family.  

She’s going to get revenge for what happened to her mother, and she’s so close, she can’t stop now. She can finally fulfill that drive instilled in her since childhood, that deep yearning for the truth, and it will finally be over, the moment she reveals what she knows.

She hasn’t seen the man since that one day in Mr. Grossberg’s office, and she’s sure he doesn’t remember her. He’s a powerful business man, and she had just been a anonymous junior associate, passing along files and taking orders. He’s seen countless faces over the years, toyed with an endless amount of people. She’s kept her head down, she’s been careful. And now, he’ll finally feel the consequences of what he did to her family, and she won’t let him forget it.

So August winds down into September, and the summer hangs on before those first few days of Autumn. She hollows out the Thinker, and she calls her sister, asking her to hold onto one more piece of evidence for her.

Charley is asleep in the corner, but he wakes up and waddles over to her. The bulb on his back seems swollen and full, as Charley laboriously finds his way to her, resting his head on her lap, as he’s done many times before.

She smiles fondly, instinctively going to scratch behind his ears. It’s amazing to think about how long she’s known him, how long they’ve stuck together. She’s gone through so much since finding him in the garden on that foggy summer morning, wrist throbbing as she runs late for her early classes.

She thinks about them now, so content together, to in tune to one another. He’s her closest friend, her trusted companion, the only constant in her life. Charley blinks up at her when her hand stills and she can see the adoration in his eyes, and it makes something warm and light spread through her chest. She’s glad to be with him. She knows that he is, too.

She had a life back in Kurain, full of cold sunlight and bamboo floors on her bare feet. She had heavy wooden sandals and her sister’s bright eyes. But the life she has now, a steady, comforting rhythm, isn’t that bad. She’s become who she was always meant to be, and she’s filled with an optimism that she hasn’t felt since she first arrived in the city.

Charley climbs off of the couch, yawning again. She watches him go, thinking about how she needs to get ready for Phoenix and Maya to come, so she can finally introduce them and they can all go out together. She can’t wait to see her sister again. It really has been too long since they’ve seen each other.

It’s what she's thinking as she switches on the lamp she bought yesterday, noticing a curtain swing in the Gatewater hotel next to her, but she doesn’t think much of it.

So when she hears the door opening, and the sound of leather shoes, she thinks that Phoenix must be early, or maybe he left something behind earlier and came back for it.

“Ms. Fey,” Redd White greets, face twisted into a demonic smile, “I do believe you have something that belongs to me.”

She feels the blood rush from her face. She tries to keep herself composed, swallowing thickly, unconsciously positioning herself in front of the Thinker statue.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she says casually, noticing the tremor in her voice. Still, she looks at him coolly, face not betraying how her stomach bottoms out in dread.

Maybe she should have bought a better light for the office. The one she has now doesn’t do a good job of illuminating the entire room. It casts shadows, like the ones that catch on Redd White’s face, giving his skin an unnatural, alien hue.

Redd White takes a step forward, purposefully, and she forces herself not to press into the desk. She stares directly at him, looking at the whites of his eyes, the way his clear blue eyes meet hers. He takes another step, holding up his hands as if having a casual conversation.

“Ms. Fey,” he says again, a hint of a warning in his voice, “Tell me where you’re keeping it, or I’ll have to go and find it myself. What a botherosity that would be.”

She looks at how his rings glint, looks at how his face stretches into a leer, not noticing his made up word in his thinly veiled threats. She’s been in this mindset once before, when her mother left and all she could think about was the way the candles lit the room.

It’s that same feeling now, only heightened by the fear thrumming through her veins, the painful beating of her heart. She hears a car outside, she feels the desk pressing into her back, she hears Red White’s syrupy sweet voice, through the pounding of her pulse as he slowly approaches her.

And then, he lurches back suddenly, two thick vines shooting out and locking him in place. She doesn’t have time to run as she watches his face darken with annoyance, watches his arm twist back to grab a red and white ball, releasing the pokemon behind him.

Charley hisses as the Purugly slices his vines away, and Redd White pulls away from his grasp. She can see the two pokemon squaring off, spitting and growling as they circle each other. She can hear Charley snap his vines on the floor threateningly as she slowly brings her hand behind her, feeling the cold metal Thinker in her palm.

All she has to do now is take Charley and get out. Find a way around Redd White, and run down the street, and not stop until she reaches the police station.

Redd White approaches her, and she ducks under his outstretched arm, and darts over to the door.

There’s a flash of light as he releases his second pokemon in front of her, cutting off her escape route. She feels her breath catch in her throat as she takes in the pokemon’s terrible height, and the pokemon watches her with black eyes, only a hint of a red pupil to let her know it exists at all.  

The Hydreigon carries itself with the casual prowess of a being who is aware of it’s own terrible nature. She knows that if she took a step, the Hydreigon would pounce on her, holding her down with his crushing weight. She would hear his hungry panting and his hot breath on her as his pearly fangs leaned closer and closer to her neck.

She doesn’t notice Redd White depositing his third pokemon into the fray, a long, towering Drapion, looming over Charley as he grapples with a Purugly. Charley grunts in exertion, slamming his Purugly into the wall.  

The Hydreigon simply hovers in front of her, and they watch each other.  She hardly dares to breathe. Red White rips apart her file cabinet, somewhere behind her. The lamp she bought seems like a spotlight.

Images flash through her mind, all the brutal court cases and news stories she’s seen over the years come back to find her, reminding her of cases where a Hydreigon turns on it’s trainer, sinking teeth into flesh, snapping bones and carrying it’s victims into the mountain caves, leaving only trails of dark red blood and entrails for police to follow.

She stands frozen in the office. She needs to move, she needs to see where Redd White is behind her, she needs to get the Thinker some place safe. But all she can do is stare at the pokemon in front of her.

There’s a reason they’ve been illegal to train for almost twenty years. They're near impossible to find on the blackmarket, that’s how cruel and unpredictable they are. She’s read stories of Hydreigons cannibalizing trainers that they don’t respect, she’s seen pictures of Hydreigons stripping bones of stringy flesh with their long fangs. She’s read case after case of trainer’s skin melting after a well planned Flamethrower. But she never thought she’d ever see one in person, just a few feet in front of her.

She feels like she’s being strangled, she can hardly take in a breath. Her fear seems to muffle the sound in the room until all she can hear is her own heartbeat throbbing in her skull. She glances over to the side. She watches Charley send out a round of pointed leaves. The Purugly takes the brunt of it, sharp leaves digging into her muscular legs. The Purugly stumbles, hitting the ground hard, and limps away from the fight.

Redd White sure seems to be taking his time with her filing cabinet. He’s probably looking for the Thinker, and hasn’t yet realized that she’s clutching it with white knuckles.

It’s like she’s watching from a security camera in the high corner of the room, as the Drapion advances and Charley starts to glow, morphing into a larger form. She watches as Charley, newly evolved, restrains Drapion with his now sturdier vines, driving the pokemon headfirst into the wall. She watches her pictures fall down at the force of the impact. She watches Charley, now a Venusaur, push Drapion away with renewed vigor and determination, working him tirelessly into the corner.

The plant on his back has bloomed, finally, into a impressive pink flower. It lays squarely on his back, seated among lush green leaves, healthy and brimming with life.

Then Redd White lands his large, meaty hand on her shoulder, and her mind goes blank with fear. She clings to the Thinker, but he is so much bigger than her, that he easily rips it from her grasp. The momentum brings her to her knees and she scrambles upright as Redd White swings the Thinker heavily in the place she had just preoccupied.

Her heart pounds. Her breath comes in loud, quick gasps. The lamp is bright and fluorescent and wrong, as Redd White steps in front of it, swinging the Thinker by the head, smiling at her jovially.

She hears Charley roar in the background. She hears the deep, dangerous call of the Hydriegion ringing throughout her apartment. She hears the Drapion stutter and click in pain. She hears Charley, through all the noise, calling for her in a high, panicked voice.

Redd White advances on her. She has nowhere to run. He brings the Thinker over his head, and her breath comes in harsh, shallow pants.

Then a thick vine wraps around his midsection and sends him crashing into the newly bought lamp behind him. She hears the crunching of glass and Redd White’s infuriating curses as he picks himself up. She turns to slip away as the office is engulfed in darkness, but the Drapion appears before her, eyes glinting in the moonlight, breathing raggedly from his fight with Charley. She’s forced back, hearing Redd White growl something under his breath.  

Charley drags the Drapion away from her.

She turns as Redd White approaches, and puts her hands up to brace herself.

Then he slams the Thinker into her temple, tossing her against the wall with the force of the blow. Sharp pain spikes through her head as she lays limp, propped up against the wall. She can feel the solid wall on her back. She is blinded by the pain as her breath lodges in her throat.

She coughs, and her head aches at the movement. She feels blood dripping down her face, and she watches the way the moonlight looks on her carpet as she sucks in a hoarse, wheezing breath, feeling her lungs freeze in her chest.

She doesn’t remember her eyes closing, but she opens them again when she feels someone in front of her. It’s Charley. He’s nudging her frantically, letting out loud, distraught noises, but she can’t feel it. It all seems so far away.

She takes another slow breath. She feels his vines cupping her face, running down her cheeks, lifting her chin. He head lolls to the side without him holding it up.

She feels him press his large head into her, letting out a long, mournful wailing. She feels the vibration in her chest rather than hears the noise. He peers at her anxiously, and she takes in another shallow breath, lips twitching into a smile. _Charley_ , she thinks.

Her eyes drift close. Her breathing stutters and stalls. She twitches involuntarily, once, twice. And then she is still, deaf to Charley’s howling, deaf as her sister desperately begs her to wake up, unfeeling as Phoenix holds her wrists in shaking hands, feeling her go cold underneath him.

* * *

 

Phoenix sits down heavily on the couch. The police tape has been cleared away, the glass has been removed from the carpet, the bloodstains soaked out. The filing cabinet was tugged back into an upright position, organized and in use once more. The crime scene was no longer a crime scene, and has gone back to being just an office. The walls have been patched up. The trial is over, the investigation is over, and Redd White is in jail for murder.

And Phoenix Wright is sitting on the couch, as he has many times before, working on paperwork or studying for the bar exam with the Chief.

His Murkrow lets out a long sigh, one that seems far too big and heavy for his tiny body. Phoenix had carefully picked up Mia’s pictures from the floor, placing them delicately back on the shelf. They’re full of people he doesn’t know, but he recognizes Mr. Grossberg in one of them, as well as a younger Mia.

He doesn’t look at them for long.

Maya wanders back into the room, slowly sitting next to him. The cameras are gone, the news reporters have moved on to other stories. He had found Edgeworth again, after all these years, and it had gone nothing like how he had wanted it to. But this is it. He looks at the quiet office, the long shadows, at Charley lying listlessly in the corner. He finally has what he wanted.

His Murkrow lets out a series of worried warbling as Phoenix feels tears rolling down his face. But he rests his cheek in his hands, and he’s so tired, suddenly. What is he going to do without the Chief? He’s only ever been in one trial, and he’s never even stood in court by himself before, so what is he going to do? What’s his plan? He has no real experience beyond what some would call a fluke and a coincidence.

He presses his palms into his hands. This is all too much for him to handle. But he takes a deep breathe, and tries to center himself again. Maya says nothing from her side of the couch, just presses her lips together and squeezes her eyes shut.

Phoenix swallows roughly. “What’s going to happen with Charley?”

Maya glances at the Venusaur. Charley hasn’t moved since he was released into Maya’s custody, as the next of kin. She gets up slowly, and kneels down to run her hand along Charley’s broad head.

“Look at you,” she says quietly, carefully, “Look how big you’ve gotten, Charley.”

He looks up at her with dull eyes. Maya smiles through her tears, scratching behind his ears the same way she’s seen Mia do many times before. Charley squeezes his eyes shut and lets out a low, sad crooning, letting it fill the air. She hears Phoenix take another deep breath from the couch.

There will be a time to pull them out of this mess. But for now, Maya sits on her heels, holding Charley’s head with her small hands. “You evolved to protect her, didn’t you?”

Charley dips his head in a nod. Maya leans forward and rests their foreheads together, closing her eyes.  

“Thank you, Charley,” she says, “I know it’s not enough. But you always were her best friend.”

She feels his heartache and grief, and she wishes so desperately that it was gone.

“Remember when sis brought you in from the cold and you stayed with us in the winter?” she whispers, her voice trembling, “Remember how you ran after her when she left for the city?”

Maya feels her shoulders shake, but when she opens her eyes and leans back, Charley is watching her mutely, intently. She rubs her palm along his forehead.

“Remember that garden you used to organize?” Maya says, “It’s still there. Pearly and I take care of it in the spring and talk about you.”

She can feel Phoenix watching her quietly from the couch.

Maya presses her lips together. “I remember coming into the city for the first time,” she tells the Venusaur, “I remember how you and sis held my hands so I wouldn’t feel lost or overwhelmed. Do you remember that, Charley?”

He rests her head further into her hands, letting out a soft, gentle noise.

“I remember,” Maya says, blinking rapidly, “I remember going out for burgers and going to the park, and I remember how sis always made time for me, how she always remembered to call, even when I was too busy with training to talk much.”

She smiles through her tears, even as they obscure her vision. “We were always so busy back then, huh? Where did all that time go?”

Charley pushes his head into her, pressing his face into her robes. She laughs a broken, hiccuping laugh as she wraps her arms around him as best as she can. She feels Phoenix place a hesitant arm around her, as they sit together on the floor, crying and reminiscing together.  

Phoenix talks about coming to Fey & co. Law Office when he was still in college, and how they studied for the bar, and how proud Mia was when he passed. Maya talks about how they would stay awake when she was a child, watching the Zubats loop around the sky as the night set in.

And slowly, they start to breathe again, finding something to lean on in the wake of this mess.

* * *

 

(From then on, Mia sees only fragments.)

She catches flashes of life here and there, moments in the office, investigating a crime scene. In a few of these moments of proximity, Maya reaches out to find her, and Mia gets channeled to help Phoenix, when she can.  

Two years later, on March 28th, Diego Armando wakes up.  

Nearly a year later, he finds Mia’s mother, and he kills her.

She’s there with Phoenix as Diego pounds the bench, angry and bitter and ruthless. She’s there as Diego snarls that Phoenix will never be half the lawyer _she_ was, that he’ll never manage to carry her legacy, that he should have found a way to protect Mia, somehow, as if that were ever a possibility in the first place.

And she’s there as Diego crumbles, frail and exhausted and blind under the searing court lights.

“From the very moment I opened my eyes… I had already lost everything I thought I had.”

* * *

 

Phoenix is watering Charley’s plant when she sees him next. He’s wearing a electric blue beanie, clad in sweatpants. Charley rumbles in content.

“I read somewhere that you have to water the plant regularly, or else it starts to smell,” Phoenix says to someone on the couch. Whoever it is lets out a hum in response.

Phoenix takes on a forlorn look at he leans down to scratch behind Charley’s ear, “I’ve got to take good care of him. He’s my last connection to Mia, after all.”

The person on the couch glances over, and Mia realizes that it’s Miles Edgeworth. Edgeworth watches the two of them, before looking down, distracted by the memory.

“Has it really been ten years?” Phoenix asks, quietly, and Mia strains to hear him.

Miles sighs, “I’m afraid so,” he says heavily, getting off the couch to stand by Phoenix.

Mia watches as Phoenix leans his head on Miles’ shoulder. She looks at the scene in front of her. Has it really been ten years? So much has changed, she thinks, as Miles Edgeworth lifts Phoenix’s beanie to press a kiss into his hair.

“Have you thought about what I said?” Miles asks, and Phoenix stiffens almost imperceivably.  

“Yeah,” he says, his voice clipped and closed off. He pulls away from Miles, hiding his eyes with the shade of his hat, as Mia watches the scene with interest. In the corner of her eye, she sees Phoenix’s Honchkrow mimic the action, covering it’s face with it’s broad head feathers.

Miles lets out a long suffering sigh, thinly masking his frustration. “I’m asking you to chose, Wright.”

Phoenix flinches violently.

Miles softens his tone. “Phoenix.”

Phoenix is still turned away as he responds, “I’m not the same person I was when I first became a lawyer. I don’t know if I fit in the courtroom anymore. Maybe I’m too different.”

“I’m not the same person I am now that I was when you first met me, either," Miles points out, patiently, "remember how you didn’t think I could change?”

Phoenix’s lips twist into a bitter smirk, and he turns back to face Miles. They look at each other for a long time, staring into each other's eyes. If there’s a silent communication here, Mia isn’t privy to it.

Eventually Phoenix breaks the contact, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I know,” he says, glancing down at Charley, “I’ve got to help you clean up this Dark Age of the Law thing, right?”

Miles wrinkles his nose in disgust at the name, “I’ve always hated that title,” he grumbles, “it’s too melodramatic for my liking.”

Phoenix laughs quietly at that. Miles watches him, and the tension seeps from the air between them, loosening their shoulders and relaxing their brows.

“So you’ll do it?” Miles says, coming to stand before Phoenix.

Phoenix takes off his beanie and looks at it in his hands. Then he looks at Miles, and his eyes are shining with an old spark that hasn’t been seen in a long time.  

“Yeah,” he promises, “I’ll get reinstated.”

Mia wanders over to Charley, trying to pet behind his ears. He stares right through her with his deep red eyes. In them she can see age, and a subdued, quiet peace. His ear flickers and he glances over with interest, as if he can see her, if only for this moment. Then he blinks his eyes closed, and she is gone.

* * *

  
“Is that a Venusaur?”

“It’s Charley! He’s been here longer than you, so you have to call him Mr. Charley, like Polly does, okay Athena?”

* * *

 

The next time she sees the office, it has long since stopped being known as her office. It’s called the Wright Anything Agency, these days. Through all the clutter and magic props, she sees two bright young adults sitting on the couch. They look like teenagers, she thinks, though they must be older than that, due to the fact that they both have small round badges pinned to their lapels.

“I cleaned the toilet yesterday,” the one with russet brown hair is saying as he stands from the couch.

The girl next to him has a shock of fiery orange hair and and personality to match, apparently, “I know, but I said that the loser of the race had to clean it today, and you didn’t race me, so that means you lost!”

“I don’t remember agreeing to that,” he deadpanned, gathering a file from the desk.

“That’s because you lost!”

The man lets out an amused breath. “How about I buy you juice again, and we’ll call it even, okay?”

“Deal!” She flashes a peace sign, easily convinced.

Mia watches the scene, fascinated. Who are these young people? It’s been so long since she was as young as they were. She doesn’t have to wonder for long, because the rest of the Agency filters in, right on cue.

“I don’t know Trucy, I still think burgers are better.” Mia’s heart aches at the sound of her sister's voice. She sounds so much older and more mature than how Mia had last seen her, all those years ago. How much more has Maya experienced since then? She sounds so grown up, it’s so different from Mia’s memories of her.

“How could you say that after trying Eldoon’s?”  A short girl with chestnut brown hair enters the room with a wide smile, craning her neck to talk to the woman behind her, “You just need to try it again, Aunt Maya.”

 _Aunt Maya._  Mia watches the scene carefully, drinking in all the details she can. There’s a portrait of someone she doesn’t recognize on the wall, a red jacket draped carelessly onto the back of the couch, and her sister, tall and beautiful and carrying herself with an air of regality that would have been foreign to her, when Mia was alive.

“So, how did it go?” Mia hears a voice behind her and whips around to find Phoenix.  

And Phoenix, god, he’s so old, how did this happen? He’s older than Mia ever was. And Maya might be older than Mia too, by this point. She can’t believe that so much has happened, even after she’s gone. But of course it has, she thinks, as she watches them interact.

The girl in the blue top hat calls Phoenix “Daddy,” and Mia feels herself smiling at the sight. Her apprentice has found his family. He’s found a place in the legal world for himself, he’s found good company, and two apprentices to teach, somewhere along the line.

“Burgers? You just got back from lunch!” She watches the wedding ring on Phoenix’s finger as he rubs his forehead, still smiling at Maya’s antics.

“Yes, but I have a separate stomach for noodles. Honestly, Nick, shouldn’t you know this by now?”

“Yeah, Daddy, you have to take us all out later.”

Phoenix continues to rub his eyebrows in mock agitation, even as his smile continues to grow. “You two,” he says, “are going to give me wrinkles.”

Maya nudges him and he shakes his head good naturedly. The two brightly colored attorneys from earlier stand off to the side, as the girl continues to quietly heckle the other, and he continues to pretend to ignore her, to her frustration.

And the office is full of noise and light and happiness, as Charley dozes in the corner. Everything turned out okay in the end, Mia thinks. Charley looks up suddenly, twisting his head to look over to where Mia is. He blinks at her. Can he see her?

“What’s gotten into Charley?” The red haired attorney asks, glancing at her partner in confusion, who shrugs in response.

Maya has quieted too, looking in the same direction, thoughtfully.  Charley gets up, slowly, making his way over to where Mia is. Mia watches fondly as he seems to recognize her, letting out a soft cry. She closes her eyes as he reaches up to touch her face, gently, with an outstretched vine, like he had done to her so many times before.

The moment passes. Charley blinks again, and retracts his vines, sighing as he he returns to his corner, gently nudging Maya as he passes.

“He must miss her a lot,” Phoenix says, watching as Charley settles in and stares off into the distance.

“Yeah,” Maya murmurs, “he never really was the same after sis died.”

The girl with the blue cape wanders over and bends down, scratching behind Charley’s ears. “It’s okay, Charley,” the girl says.  

Charley leans into her touch, comforted by the action, glancing up at the girl gratefully. The girl flashes a wide smile in response, and the office seems to exhale.

“Trucy, who’s turn was it to clean the toilet?” The girl in yellow suddenly seems to remember the early argument.

“I thought it was your turn, Athena,” Phoenix says, frowning. Athena pouts at him, and he seems to catch on. “But now that I think about it…”

“Come on, Mr. Wright,” the red attorney grumbles, “seriously?”

Mia places a hand on her sister’s shoulder, and Maya reaches up to take it, still watching the scene before her with amusement. “We’re okay, Mia,” she says, quiet enough that not even Phoenix hears her, “We made it.”

Mia can see that it’s true. So she lets this warmth carry her, until the Wright Anything Agency fades from her view, only the memory of their laughter ringing in her ears, and a deep undisturbed contentment settles in.

She feels Diego next to her, and she’s been waiting for him a long time. “I’ve missed you,” she says simply, and he smiles in response.

“You wouldn’t believe it, but I’ve missed you too,” he says, looking at her with soft brown eyes. He is full of color and hope and love, here next to her. So she takes his hand, interlocking their fingers, watching the way his lips quirk into a familiar lopsided smile.   

Diego lets go of her hand, and she turns to find her mother, Misty Fey. She’s different than how Mia remembers, but it’s still her. It’s what she’s thinking as she feels her mother’s arms around her. How could she have forgotten what this felt like?

“Oh Mia,” her mother breathes, “My sweet, brave Mia.” 

“Hi, mom,” Mia says, as tears roll down her smiling face, “I’ve been looking for you."

**Author's Note:**

> “If the dead are watching, I want them to see us writing, dancing, singing, painting. I want them to see that we still reach out to each other.”  
> -Richard Siken


End file.
